Jedi Destiny V: In Mind's Eye
by Mikells
Summary: When faced with the prospect of graduating from the Praxeum, Zak Arranda balks, and insists that he is not ready-he is still plagued by memories he can't recover. In a bid to be helpful, the elder Jedi contacts Kamino in order to see if they can help him.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

_**Kamino**_

**31:4:24 ABY**

The comm. panel bleeped loudly, interrupting the very serious conversation that the Prime Minister was having with his chief technician. He hesitated to turn and answer it at first, not when their guest was standing so obviously to the side of the room, his features obscured by the thick, black robes he wore, and the hood drawn so far over his head that the only thing visible was the pair of glowing yellow eyes.

One look over to their guest was enough to realise the error of choosing to ignore the incoming transmission. So, with an excusing nod to his chief technician, he turned and strode gracefully over to the chair in the centre of the office, held in place by a stem that extended from the top of the chair's backing straight up into the ceiling.

When the sound of the office doors closing after the technician's departure reached the Prime Minister's ears, he shot his visitor another pleading look and was regarded with a cold glare from those strange, glowing eyes.

Nervously, he ran a hand over the ridge along the middle of his scalp. He fingered the receiver button on the comm. panel at the same time that he sat in the chair in a single fluid movement. A holographic screen shimmered to life a few feet away and the Prime Minister blinked in surprise when he saw the face of a renowned Jedi Master come into focus.

"Jedi Master Skywalker," he said plainly to the Jedi. The visitor to the side of the room shifted and his glowing eyes narrowed. "It is a great honour to finally have the chance to speak to you. To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"_Good evening, Prime Minister,_" the Jedi said with a wide smile. That he had known what time of Kamino's planetary rotation I t was when it would have been different at the Jedi's location spoke highly of his wisdom. "_I do believe that the honour is mine._"

The Prime Minister nodded and smiled. There weren't many humans could truly recognise a Kaminoan smile, but, it appeared, Skywalker was one of them.

"_I am calling on behalf of one of my students, as a matter of fact,_" the Jedi said. The Prime Minister nodded and ignored the sudden movement from his guest, lest Skywalker pick up that he wasn't alone. "_I have heard that Kaminoan scientists have added studies of the mind to their extensive repertoire of knowledge. Is this truth, or mere rumour?_"

"It is truth, Master Jedi," the Prime Minister said with a nod. "The events of—and immediately following—the Clone Wars led us to the conclusion that if we continued on with only cloning projects, others would always find ways to abuse and exploit us." He shot a pointed look to the shadows that his guest was hiding in before returning his gaze to Skywalker's image. "When I was elected to succeed as Prime Minister, I decided that it would be beneficial for us to have another commodity to offer the Republic … something less exploitative."

The Prime Minister paused, and he waited for Skywalker to absorb the knowledge with all its implications. In the back of his mind, he hoped that Skywalker would even have seen that the Prime Minister had directed his gaze away, and that he would conclude that something wasn't right. Realistically, he doubted the Jedi would have that much foresight when there was no reason to suspect that anything would be wrong on Kamino.

It seemed that he didn't. "_Then I, on behalf of the aforementioned student, would like to employ the services of your specialists,_" Skywalker said.

"How may we be of service?" the Prime Minister replied cordially.

"_We had an incident a few years ago that resulted in my student … well, let's just say he wasn't quite acting himself._"

"I sympathise, Master Jedi."

"_Thank you, Prime Minister. Since then, the aforementioned student has been trying to recover his memories. He's made quite good progress in that department, but there are memories that continue to elude him. He feels that he has done all that he can on his own, and I was wondering if there is anything that your scientists can do to help him recover the rest of his memories._"

The Prime Minister thought about the predicament for a moment. With his guest in the room, he couldn't exactly think aloud like he usually did when he was on his own, and so he couldn't discuss with himself the implications of having Jedi on Kamino. He chanced a glance over at those cold, glowing eyes in the corner and saw them narrow suggestively at him.

"_Do it!_" a low voice hissed from his guest, so low that he barely heard it, and he doubted that the wizened Jedi on the comm. screen would have at all.

"I think we may be able to help you," the Prime Minister said after another moment. He stroked his small chin and blinked. "Would you like for an appointment to be booked, or would you like to discuss the convenience of timing with your student first?"

"_Go ahead and book the appointment,_" Master Skywalker said graciously.

The Prime Minister pulled a pad from his pocket and keyed in the appointment scheduling list. He picked the first free slot, and then looked back up at the Jedi on the holo screen. "May I enquire as to the name of your student?"

"_Zak Arranda,_" Skywalker said. The Prime Minister entered the name into the list, and then sent the confirmation up to the techs in the control tower, who would then put the expected time and date into the main database so they could prepare for the arrival of the Jedi.

"I have booked Master Arranda in for an appointment in three days time. We will be more than happy to see what we can do to help him with his problem."

"_Thank you,_" Skywalker said with a smile. "_The Jedi Council will be in touch before then to discuss payment. May the Force be with you._"

The Prime Minister bowed his head and bade the Jedi a good day before he switched off the screen and turned in his chair to face their visitor. Though the expression was subtle, he knew that the dark-clad man could see the regret on his face.

"_Send for me when they arrive,_" the man hissed almost inaudibly again before he turned on his heel and headed for the door. He waved a hand before he reached it, and the door opened on its own, allowing him entrance into the corridor.

When the door slid shut behind the visitor, the Prime Minister slipped the pad back into his pocket, ran a hand nervously over the crest atop his head again, and then sighed in shame.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

_**Not Ready**_

**31:4:18 ABY**

Jaina watched from the doorway of the room she shared with Zak Arranda as he was seated in the middle of the room; his eyes were closed and his mind open as he meditated on whatever it was that seemed to bother him lately.

It had been almost a full year since he, her brother Jacen, and their friend Talesa Valara had become trapped temporarily in an alternate universe. Jaina had heard the story many times from Jacen and Talesa, but something about their experiences there had rattled Zak to the point that he was unwilling to discuss it. Outwardly, he appeared fine and calm and centred like one would expect of a Jedi of his level of training and discipline, but because of the bond that existed between him and herself, Jaina could sense the real turmoil beneath the surface.

Something had happened that he blamed himself for, and that he would never forgive himself for. She empathised with him, but she wished that he would talk about it with her, or with his own sister, Tash. Both of them were worried about him.

So, while Tash was out on her daily training exercises in and around the Praxeum, Jaina found herself with time enough to spare to watch him meditate and keep himself centre. He'd been doing it a lot since their return. She thought that perhaps he was using it as a means of escape from the guilt. Her uncle had advised her that eventually he might open up to her and the others. He said that no one should press him for the information. It was his right to keep whatever troubled him to himself, as long as it didn't interfere with his progress as a Jedi.

Jaina laughed at the thought of employing a counsellor of sorts at the Praxeum. Sure enough, there were Jedi who specialised in certain abilities of the Force; giving them certain insights into the psyche that made them great mentors and exceptional analysts. But any one of them could also decide to expand on their abilities enough to help other up-and-coming Jedi by providing them with a non-judgmental body to talk to, someone to vent their frustrations and doubts and feelings onto if it proved too much to deal with themselves.

Her uncle, Luke Skywalker, while not exactly to that standard, often came close.

Jaina knew that it was because he understood a lot of what his students could potentially go through. He himself hadn't begun his Force training until he was nineteen standard years old. And in only four short years, he had advanced to the level of Jedi Knight—the first of the New Order. And even then, his trials had not ended. He had still much more to learn, and many more tests to endure.

She felt whispers of the Force swirling around her as Zak extended his field of influence, and she saw random objects in their quarters floating up from their prone positions on tabletops or the floor.

_Hi, Jaina_, Zak's voice whispered into her mind. It was ethereal and bodiless, and Jaina smiled at him on the floor by way of response. She felt his gentle probes upon her mind; a quiet invitation to join him. She entered the room fully, and closed the door behind her, but did not lock it.

She sat down on the floor in front of him and closed her own eyes, letting her mind go free and letting her thoughts drift out to intermingle with Zak's presence permeating the air of the room and reaching beyond. She often found a kind of true peace when she and Zak meditated together and allowed their minds and thoughts to weave and intertwine. At times like this, she guessed that Zak had more appreciation for it than she—though that wasn't to say she had any lack of appreciation for it. But she guessed that he drew strength from her when he was having trouble finding it in himself.

Or, perhaps to be more precise in her opinion, he drew on her to help him find that strength within himself. Even to this day, she felt indebted to him for that one time he had reached into her mind and soothed her when she had exploded with rage after Brakiss had killed a Jedi Master she had known well.

_How are you today?_ she thought to him carefully. She deliberately didn't probe his thoughts too much. She preferred to hear his response rather than just find out for herself. It defeated the purpose of having asked.

By way of response, Jaina could feel laughter all around her, though it wasn't audible at all. The cheer and brightness within Zak's mind infected her own, causing her to smile. Images flashed into her thoughts through the intermingling with his own; memories of his own laughter mirroring that of her own and of Jacen and Tash's, memories of him accomplishing something in his private lessons with Luke Skywalker, and the brief celebrations between them.

_That good, huh?_

She felt, rather than saw the nod of confirmation from him. His thoughts intensified, and the air around them seemed to grow warmer, even though the planet was in what could only be described as a cold season.

Cab'uL Tuar was still much a mystery to the Jedi there, and to the Republic officers aboard the _Corellian Glory_ and its escorts in orbit. It was what was commonly known as a rogue planet; it didn't revolve around a sun, and it was part of no system or cluster of planets. And yet, despite all of that, it somehow supported an atmosphere. Heat from the planet was released from the core through magma vents far to the south, and that heat accumulated in the atmosphere. Due to that, moisture was inevitable, and plant life had sprung up across the world, and bodies of water were present. They weren't so much oceans, as they were seas and large lakes—the Praxeum had been built near one such lake so that it could be used as a fresh source of water and to power the hydro-electric generators that provided the entire facility with power.

But occasionally, the planet's heat reserves waned. Less heat came from the magma vents, and the atmosphere of the planet cooled ever so slightly that it could be called a cold season. It usually lasted for several months, and wasn't really a season at all, since it didn't happen at a regular time of a year. The warmer season lasted for twice as long, which meant that sometimes the colder season was in the middle of the year, and other times it overlapped two consecutive years.

_How long were you standing there?_ Zak's thoughts came to her clearly, though softly. The room around them grew a little warmer, and then the increase stopped altogether and held for a while.

_Not long. Jacen and I just got back from Coruscant._

They had been called before the Jedi Council, apparently by referral of Luke Skywalker, and had been put through the Jedi Trials. They had both passed with exceptional grace, and had been congratulated profusely by their peers at the Temple.

_Congratulations, Miss _Jedi Knight_, _Zak thought to her. She felt his sly grin at the emphasis on her new status. She still felt a little proud of it, though not dangerously so. She knew that too much pride could be a failing—a path that led to the dark side. But there was nothing wrong with a healthy dose of it.

She sent her thanks into his thoughts and then probed at them in a teasing manner, drawing a psychic laugh from him at the attempt.

There was a knock at the door, and Jaina pulled away from Zak's thoughts at once and allowed herself to reacclimatise to the physical environment around them. The room still feels unseasonably warm, and she smiled at Zak when she opened her eyes and saw that his were still closed and he was still engrossed in his meditation.

"Come in," she said in moderate tones to whoever was outside. She heard the door behind her open but didn't turn around at first. After a moment, she stood up and turned to see that her uncle was standing there with a smile on his face as he looked down at Zak. "Hi, Uncle Luke," she said cheerfully.

"I'm very disappointed, Jaina," he said teasingly. "Neither you nor Jacen came to tell me that you passed when you returned. He went straight up to the _Glory_ and you came here to see Zak."

_Apologies,_ Zak's thought-voice rang in both of their heads.

"Congratulations, Jaina," Luke said. He turned to Zak and his smile grew, if possible. "I have some good news, actually—or potentially good news, anyway."

Zak's eyes fluttered open at those words, and gradually the room's temperature dropped back down to seasonably acceptable levels. "Good news?" Zak asked curiously.

"Potentially," Luke said. "Depending on the reception of said news, really."

Jaina saw where this was going and she could barely contain her excitement as she looked from Luke to Zak and then back again. She waited for her uncle to speak, since she herself didn't want to steal his moment away from him. She could sense just how cheerful it had made him.

"I have been speaking with the council," he started. "They have agreed with my recommendation that you and Tash both be considered for apprenticeship status."

Luke was right. It was only potentially good news—Zak didn't take it very well. Jaina's smile melted when she could see the dark look on his face. Surely, he had nothing against the concept. It was a sign that he and his sister had done well in their relatively short time training in the ways of the Force. Jaina would have taken Zak on as an apprentice herself, if she would be allowed to. She suppressed an internal giggle at the thought of Zak being apprenticed to her.

"No," Zak said simply.

"What? Why?" Jaina demanded.

"My sentiments exactly," Luke said more calmly than Jaina. "I would have thought you would relish the idea of taking the next step towards becoming a Jedi, Zak. You _are_ ready for it."

"With respect, Master Skywalker—Luke—I'm not ready." Zak's face was stone. He had no expression to give away whatever he was feeling inside. Jaina couldn't get past the wall he'd erected to block her off from using the link to read him.

"May I ask why you would think that?" Luke asked. Jaina resisted the urge to cross her arms across her chest defiantly to intimidate him. "I have seen what you are capable of. I know that you have power and discipline enough to make a great Jedi one day. I don't understand why you would wish to forestall this?"

"Have you been elsewhere for the past few years, Master?" Zak said. It was a little rude, and Jaina could see and sense that he regretted it instantly, but he pressed on anyway. "I murdered someone; I gave in to the dark side to _murder_ someone. And then I turned that power you speak of against you, and Jaina and the others. Against my friends and my family and all who have ever shown me support or love. I constantly put myself in danger—willingly—to protect those more experienced than me, something you yourself have chastised me for on many occasions."

"The death of Brakiss was not of your doing. Brakiss forced you into that situation. That you feel remorse over that incident now only proves your worth as a Jedi. Taking a life is never an easy thing, no matter how you justify it. The events that followed were also out of your control. None of us was mortally injured. And those of us that were injured at all recovered with amazing speed and grace. You cannot, and you should not, continue to blame yourself for those events."

"And putting yourself in danger to protect others shows great selflessness, Zak," Jaina pleaded with him.

"Or great stupidity," Zak mumbled to himself.

"I don't believe that for a minute," Luke contradicted him. "Look, I won't push you into something if you don't feel that you're ready for it, but I want you to at least try to see it from where I'm coming from; I've seen your potential, and I've witnessed how quickly you and your sister caught up to your classmates in your studies. The Jedi Order would be more than honoured to have you both."

Something struck Jaina then, and she frowned that she hadn't seen it sooner. She looked at Zak, digging just a little deeper into his thoughts. It was only a little intrusive, but he would forgive her for it. She was doing it for him. What she found, she relayed telepathically to her uncle, who realised instantly the same thing that she had just seconds earlier.

"Ah," he said softly. "The memory thing. I understand."

Zak shot Jaina a disparaging look that made her flinch with guilt. She returned his look with an apologetic one, and remained silent.

"There is a gap in my memory. Most of what I blocked out from my first year I've recovered, but there are still … things." Zak's frown deepened in thought before he continued. "I don't want to burden further training with that. I'm not ready until I can remember everything I did and why."

Luke nodded, but he didn't reply right away. Jaina found herself wanting to go to Zak's side and grasp his hand tightly, shoring him up with some of her own strength and letting him know that she would be there for him no matter what he decided to do with his life. She kept herself in check, however, and remained close to her uncle as they all stood there in silence.

Zak's thoughts began to seep through the link to her, little by little. They were conflicted, to say the least of it. He was amazed and intrigued by the possibility of taking the next step towards becoming a Jedi, but at the same time it was true that he didn't think he was ready.

"There … is something else, Uncle Luke," Jaina whispered to him.

"Yes," he said, speaking to both her and Zak. "There is a test I will ask you both to undergo; a test of worth, for lack of a better description. Typically on Yavin IV, I would ask a student to go out into the jungle and meditate. The point of the exercise is to reflect on your abilities, and what training you have undergone to that point, and to confront the darker impulses within yourself and ensure that you have acceptable control over those impulses."

Zak shuddered.

"You can do it, Zak," Luke said bluntly. "Of that, I have not even a skerrick of doubt. The challenge for you would be _wanting_ to do it."

"If I pass this test?" Zak asked, allowing his curiosity to get the best of him for a moment. Jaina smiled at the touch of enthusiasm in his voice.

"You'll see the Jedi High Council and be appointed a mentor," Luke said. "With Jacen's and Jaina's recent advancement, either Mara-Jade or I could put in a request to take you on … or"—he shot Jaina a rueful smile—"either Jacen or Jaina could make the request."

Zak looked at Jaina challengingly, as if he _wanted_ her to make the request. Made sense to her that he would want that; she wanted it too. It would keep them together for a while longer, at least. But then, Zak's defences went back up, and he became uncertain once more. Jaina was frustrated that he wouldn't let her in, but she kept that to herself as best she could.

"How would I go about recovering the rest of my memories?" he asked. "I've tried everything I can think of."

Jaina frowned at her uncle before the words came out of his mouth. "I'll contact the Kaminoan Prime Minister and organise an appointment for you. I hear they have some new technology that can probe the memory engrams of the brain"

Again, Zak looked hopeful, and it only fuelled Jaina's irritation. Again, she kept herself in check; it was something she felt best discussed in private, rather than in front of Zak who would outright disagree with her and insist. She paid no attention to the rest of the conversation between the two of them, but when her uncle turned to leave, she followed him.

_Back later,_ she thought to Zak across the bond. He nodded to her and she left the room behind her uncle and fell into step beside him in the short hall to the turbolift.

"Credit for your thoughts," Luke said after they were in the lift and descending to the ground.

"Why did you suggest the Kaminoans to him?" Jaina asked bluntly. "You knew he was just going to jump at the chance to see if they can help him with the memory thing."

"Yes," Luke agreed, "and he did." He turned to look at Jaina and opened his mouth to speak when the lift opened up to the ground level. Jaina stepped out first, and Luke followed, and they walked toward the main building side-by-side.

"Then why?"

"He needs the help, Jaina," Luke insisted placidly. Jaina frowned again. She hated when he used that tone to put his point across; it meant that nothing she could say could change the decision. "He has spent the better part of the last four years doing everything he can to retain those memories for himself, and—yes—he's had a great deal of success in that regard."

"But?"

"But …" Luke started, picking up on the queue. "As I said, he is ready to take the next step. He is beyond the training here. Another Jedi could potentially take him that much further. I won't push him down that path, but I will _help_ him achieve his potential where I can."

"And you think that going to the Kaminoans about his memory is _helping_?" Jaina demanded. She stopped walking and waited for the older Jedi to stop as well and turn to look at her. "For starters, this new technology they have could be nothing more than a rumour. You don't know for certain that they've expanded their knowledge base beyond genetics."

"Well, no," Luke admitted. "But I intend to at least ask to find out."

"And," Jaina continued as if the interruption hadn't happened, "I don't feel that this is the best way to be going about it. He should be trying to get his memory back the right way—the natural way—without any outside help. Didn't you drill it into me and Jacen and the others not to help him out with his memory recovery on the premise that it would lack the insight unique to Zak?"

"I did," Luke said thoughtfully. "But it has been four years, Jaina. He has recovered all he thinks he can."

"Just because he _thinks_ he can't recover the rest on his own, that doesn't necessarily mean that he won't."

Luke didn't reply right away, and Jaina rewarded her uncle with a smug smile at her point. "True enough. But if Zak wants the help, who am I to deny him?"

"His mentor."

"Not good enough. He's old enough now to be making his own decisions. He's an adult; if he wants to do this, then I will not stop him." He turned and resumed his stride towards the main Praxeum complex.

Jaina didn't hesitate to catch up to him and fall in stride beside him again. She also didn't hesitate to continue the discussion. "I still don't like it."

"Jaina," Luke said, "I know you don't like it. But it is Zak's decision. I'm afraid that you're going to have to accept that if you love him." He turned his head to look at her and changed the topic only slightly, though she didn't bother to look back at him.

"If you're worried that his graduating could mean separating the two of you, I was serious about my suggestions back there," he said slyly. "Any one of us could take him on as an apprentice. You and Jacen are entitled to take an apprentice for yourselves now, you know?"

"I know. I intend to make the request, but I understand that there's no guarantee."

"Something you're going to have to prepare yourself for, Jaina," Luke said solemnly. "The life of a Jedi isn't an easy one when there are loved ones involved. Already, you know that because of your parents. But now that you're in a serious relationship, it could potentially get that much more difficult for you."

They crossed the remainder of the distance to the building in silence, and Jaina could not stop thinking about those possibilities for the rest of the day.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

_**Introspection**_

Zak went straight back to his meditation when Jaina and Luke left the room. Already, there had been much on his mind, much bothering him in his sleep since his return from the alternate universe. Now, there was this new set of … well, not problems exactly; issues, perhaps.

Becoming a Jedi was something he had thought would be a good idea—back in the days of the Rebel Alliance when he and Tash had first met Luke Skywalker. But that had been long before either of them had discovered their own Force potential. It had only been a dream, a fantasy; something they could hope for and wish for but which was never realistically obtainable.

And then it had become a possibility. The novelty of being a Jedi had worn off. Zak and his sister had made a lot of progress, and both of them were now doing things and showing abilities neither of them thought possible. Apparently, they had come far enough to be given the chance to take the next step.

Zak knew that Tash wouldn't hesitate, but he couldn't jump the chance as fast as she could. He just couldn't. There was just so much standing in his way.

_The trials of the self are but a part of the road to the light, Zak,_ a familiar, ethereal voice echoed in his mind. He shook his head and ignored the voice. He didn't need to be reminded of his most recent failure.

During his time in the alternate universe, Zak had become convinced that the Empress of the Empire there could be saved if the Remnant had been able to arrest the Emperor. He had been so sure of it, that he had wagered the Remnant's survival on it. He'd convinced them so completely of it that they had been willing, even eager in some ways, to go along with the plan.

But he had been wrong, and he had been wrong so completely that it tortured him; keeping him awake some nights, while giving him night terrors on others. He could still remember the gut-wrenching feeling of General Jacen Solo's death through the Force, and how it had brought him crashing to his knees. It had been so senseless. He knew in that instant just how misguided his judgement had been; he had wanted to see the good in that Jaina so badly that he had been blinded to his instincts.

So, reflecting on how badly he had messed up there, he couldn't help but second-guess other decisions and judgements he had made over the years. Had he also been wrong to believe in Allina, who continued to insist for months after their arrival at Cab'uL Tuar that she be kept under guard. Was he also wrong to have put himself in danger to save her life? Was he wrong about his relationship with Jaina, and his self-control regarding his memory-outbursts? He couldn't tell anymore. Not with that one massive mistake hanging over his head like a dark cloud, throwing into darkness everything he had ever done before.

Before he even realised it in time to prepare, he had slipped into another of those frequent memory replays.

* * *

The steady sound of beeping reached Zak's ears when he woke, but he did not yet open his eyes. He knew it was dark, without having to reach out with the Force. If the lights had been on, he would have felt their weightless pressure against the lids of his eyes. So he kept his eyes closed, and instead reached out with his other senses.

Again, without aid of the Force, he knew that there were two other people in the room with him. He could hear the subdued sounds of shuffling footsteps and clothing material, and the harsh breathing of someone trying to be quiet. It was his sense of smell that told him where he was; there was only one room or chamber in the entire Praxeum building that smelled so heavily of disinfectants and bacta: the infirmary.

He took all this in without moving a muscle, without even so much as a twitch of awareness to alert those in the infirmary with him to his regaining consciousness. Surprise would yet be on his side. After moments of silence in which the other two did not speak or make any other sign that he could detect that they had noticed him, he slowly tried to raise his left hand. But he couldn't. It moved but a fraction before the restraints around his wrist tightened and stopped him from going any further.

Containing the frustrated sigh, he lowered his hand back to the smooth surface on which he lay and flexed his fingers, calling upon the Force to do his bidding and strip the restraints from his arms and legs and torso as soundlessly as he could. It worked, but he didn't realise it until a minute after he had stripped the restraints and again detected no sign of notice.

It was then, finally, that he opened his eyes and looked around.

Standing several feet from the diagnosis table to which Zak was strapped were two figures, blotted out by the darkness of the infirmary, but still known to him regardless. One of them, he realised, he should have known before even opening his eyes. The unnatural, beyond-telepathic bond between their minds had formed during their captivity by the Sith Lord, Darth Pravus, and had been so very helpful to them in devising their plan to escape without being overheard by monitoring equipment.

Jaina looked to the bench on the other side of her and the other girl, at the myriad scientific and medical apparatus that littered the tabletop, before returning her gaze to her companion and flourishing her hand impatiently while whispering a reply to something that Zak had missed.

"I don't care!" she said in such a low tone that a non-Force user would not have heard her. "He … he saved my life, Matilda." Her voice wavered and Zak closed his eyes before she looked his way. He opened them again when he sensed that neither girl was looking at him.

Matilda was the name of the other girl. Zak didn't know her family name, only her given one. He also knew that her parents had been survivors of the destruction of Alderaan, and that they had been wealthy before its destruction, whereas they were no longer so. He had passed her in the halls once or twice when he'd first arrived at the Praxeum months ago but they had never actually spoken more than passing greetings to each other.

"He's in a coma, Jaina," the other girl whispered back. "There's not much I can do for him unless I get permission from Master Skywalker or Geesev to run my own tests."

"Then ask!" Jaina hissed.

Neither of them spoke for a minute, but Zak could see that Matilda was staring at Jaina with one of those "what more do you expect from me" looks that looked so much like the ones he'd seen in Jaina. Jaina herself was returning that look with one that was defiant and uncaring of the message that Matilda was trying to put across to her.

"I'll ask tomorrow morning," Matilda finally said.

Zak had heard enough. He slowly slipped off the edge of the bench, and used the Force to mask any sound his feet might have otherwise made with the landing, and as he padded over to the open door between the room he was in and the next. He hadn't been around the infirmary enough to have memorised the purposes of all four rooms, but the room he entered he remembered was the recovery ward. He had spent a couple of days there in his first month of training after having undergone bacta treatment for injuries to his arm, head and back.

Looking around, he noticed that it looked exactly the same as when he had been in there last. All the beds, this time, were devoid of life and the room was completely dark and silent, aside from Zak's shallow, controlled breaths.

There was a door on the other side of the room; it was closed. A cloak was draped over the edge of a bench nearby, and he picked it up and slipped it around his shoulders and flipped the hood forward to obscure his features. Then he darted with soft steps across the recovery ward, looking once over his shoulder before he opened the door to see if either Jaina or Matilda had yet noticed his disappearance, and then opened the door and slipped outside.

* * *

Zak shook himself free of the memory and opened his eyes. Immediately frowning, he rose to his feet and walked over to the small basin in the corner of the room and flicked on the tap. Cupping his hands beneath the running water, he filled them and then splashed the cold water against his face before flicking the tap back off and reaching for the nearby facial towel.

He reflected on the frequency of that particular memory as he dried his face and hung the towel back from its hook. He had seen it more than a dozen times now, and each time, the memory ended just as he left the infirmary. He had already concluded on his own that the memories immediately following were traumatic enough that he had unintentionally blocked them from his own access. But it frustrated him nonetheless.

He wanted his memories back, especially now that he felt it was one of the few things holding him back from accepting Luke Skywalker's offer of moving to the next stage in his training. But Jaina was wrong. He wasn't going to be able to access the rest of the memories on his own. He was going to need help … help that, possibly, only the Kaminoans could provide for him at this stage.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

_**Preparing for Departure**_

Nearly a week had passed since Jaina's uncle, Luke Skywalker, had told the Arrandas that he felt they were both ready to progress and become Jedi apprentices. She knew that her uncle was more than a little perturbed that Zak had rebuffed the offer. Jaina was outright annoyed by it. But she was more annoyed that Zak had so readily agreed to Luke's offer to ask the Kaminoans for help.

In those few days since then, Luke had contacted the Kaminoan Prime Minister and scheduled a visit for Zak. Following that, he'd put Mara-Jade in charge of overseeing the Praxeum while he went ahead of Zak to gain further insight into whatever procedure the Kaminoans had developed that was supposed to help with the memory loss.

Jaina had spent a good deal of that time brooding, and she knew that Zak was aware of her discomfort. But regardless of how she felt about the whole thing, she'd already decided she wasn't going to let him go alone; she was going with him, and she was going to be keeping a close eye on both him and their hosts.

There was still much animosity toward the Kaminoans since the days of the Old Republic. Many felt that the Clone Wars could have reached a more diplomatic solution a lot sooner than its eventual military outcome if only the Kaminoans hadn't kept using their bought Senate position to push the Republic further into debt by purchasing more and more clones, dragging out the conflict with the Separatists. Jaina often considered the possibility that her grandfather might not have been so easily swayed by the lure of the dark side if the war had ended much sooner. Those thoughts were fed by Zak's and Jacen's reports from their trip to the alternate universe, in which Anakin was very much alive and very much a senior Jedi.

So Jaina felt that she was justified in her distrust of the Kaminoans, and therefore entirely within her rights to accompany Zak to their world and make sure that this new treatment of theirs wasn't just a smokescreen. If she could manage it, perhaps she could even change Zak's mind about going through with it in the first place.

"Huh," she muttered to herself as she packed another set of casual wear into her pack and snapped the lid shut, "wouldn't that be something."

She heaved the pack over to the door to hers and Zak's room, where a hover pad was waiting with a pack of Zak's own things and the skimboard he had built over the past couple of years on his own. She had never seen him use it yet, but from what she knew of the device, it wasn't entirely safe. The only thing that kept the rider on the device were a pair of adhesive strips spaced evenly apart, and the devices controls were on the board itself, toward the rear and controlled by the rearmost foot.

She yanked the comm. device from her belt and pressed down on the transceiver button. "Artoo;" she started, "our stuff is ready to be loaded onto the _Hunter_ now. Come pick it up when you have a minute spare?" She heard the high-pitched whistle-warble of her uncle's astromech droid, Artoo Detoo, replying before she clipped the device back to her belt and fell to her rump on the bed with a heavy sigh.

Jaina began to wonder how long they were going to be away. Not that it would bother her if their trip was a protracted one, but neither her uncle nor Zak had actually discussed it with her. It was immediately understood without discussion that Jaina would be going to Kamino with Zak. She could have asked him, of course, except that he was aboard the _Corellian Glory_, partaking of Captain Tenaha's wisdom of command. Perhaps, she thought, he was trying to gain some sort of solace for whatever decision he'd made in the alternate universe that had tortured him so much since his return. Or maybe—just maybe, she thought to herself—he was just rounding out his Jedi training by finally getting some command training and-or experience.

Already he'd proven to be a good pilot, though his initial skills were raw and untested—their daring escape from Brakiss' station years ago. And while he wasn't on the same level as Jaina or her siblings, he was quite good for someone that had little or no prior flight training. His major flaw, as Jaina saw it, was his hesitancy. He wasn't so willing to rely on the Force's ever-present guidance to help him fly. He often spoke of his desire to be able to fly like any normal person. Jaina could only imagine how determined he would be. She'd been extraordinarily lucky to come from exceptional piloting blood. Her father was famed for his record on the Kessel Run. Anakin Skywalker had been a hero in the Clone Wars, known best for his proficiency in the seat of a star fighter, and Luke Skywalker had proven equally successful during the rebellion against the Empire.

Looking up from the floor briefly, she saw the barrel-shaped Artoo Detoo roll into the room. The dome atop the droid's stocky body swivelled once until Artoo's "eye" came to rest on where Jaina sat. He whistled once at her, which Jaina automatically understood as a happy greeting, and she smiled back at the little droid as he plugged himself into the interface port on the hover pad's control board and instructed the repulsor-propelled device to depart for the hangar. Artoo followed it a second later, but Jaina remained where she sat, continuing to mull over the upcoming events.

In truth, she considered the possibility of actually requesting to the council that she take Zak on during his apprenticeship, but she found it highly unlikely that the request would be granted. She was too close to him, and pretty much everyone that knew her knew it. While the New Jedi Order didn't frown on relationships as the Old Order had, there were still some lines that just weren't crossed. As nice as the possibility might be, in reality, she would most likely opt to remain without an apprentice for a while—until she felt ready for the responsibility.

If she ever was.

Her comm. beeped and she yanked it from her belt without pause. "Yes?"

"_It's Allina,_" the voice of a younger woman said from the other end of the comm. line. "_Artoo's just loaded yours and Zak's things aboard the _Silent Hunter_. Am I to assume you're going somewhere?_"

Jaina frowned. She had assumed that all of those close to her and Zak would know about their impending trip to Kamino. She knew that Tash and Jacen both knew—Jacen was coming down from the _Glory_ later to see them off. Matilda knew, but she had busied herself in the infirmary with Geesev, going over the data of Zak's incident years ago to better understand any potential future side-effects. Mara-Jade knew because Luke had already gone ahead of them, and he would have told her why. She wasn't sure if Anakin knew, but it was a safe bet that he did, since Jacen was aware of it.

When Allina had first come into all of their lives, Jaina had detested and distrusted her. She had been created in a laboratory by Alitha, the self-proclaimed Empress of the Second Imperium and at one time the lover to a much younger Zak. She had, at that time, stolen a sample of Zak's DNA, and years later finally successfully merged it with her own to create Allina. Allina had then undergone an accelerated growth procedure until she resembled a girl in her early teens, and then had been implanted with fictional memories of a life time with Alitha.

For the next year, Alitha had patiently moulded Allina's beliefs so that what was really the New Republic had been an evil rebellion in her misguided eyes, and the Second Imperium was actually a benevolent governmental structure trying to maintain peace and order in the galaxy.

At first, Jaina hadn't been able to accept that Allina could really allow herself to be so completely entrenched in that belief without having looked at both sides of the conflict. But that had been before she'd known about Allina's origins; when she had thought like everyone else that Allina had been a product of the affair between Zak and Alitha more than two decades ago. Even after she had found out Allina's true origins, and after the girl had surrendered to Luke Skywalker and _insisted_ she be locked up for the small amount of harm and grief she had brought down upon the Jedi at Yavin—culminating in their exile from the system altogether—Jaina still resented her.

But that had changed nearly two years ago at Navii Lya Prime when Allina had been on the verge of death, due to instabilities in her genetic makeup deliberately created by Alitha as a means to keep the girl in line and loyal to her. While Zak had been infiltrating one of the Second Imperium's Star Destroyers to steal the information for a cure that they needed to save Allina, Jaina had been attacked by a human-Hssiss hybrid that had bitten her and slashed open her gut. Blind, half-deaf and barely able to move, Allina had willingly worked on the cure for the mutations wracking Jaina's body, and in the process, her own degeneration had accelerated and she'd been placed in a deep freeze to buy more time until Zak had returned.

That one selfless act had redeemed the girl in Jaina's eyes, and she would never, ever forget it.

"Sorry, Allina," Jaina said, "I assumed that Zak or Tash had informed you."

"_About what?_" Allina inquired casually.

Jaina could barely make out the sound of soft footsteps in the background when Allina held down her own comm.'s transceiver. "Zak and I are going to Kamino for a few days." Then, sensing the next question, she continued with, "For private reasons."

"_OK,_" Allina replied cheerfully. Her footsteps picked up a little, and then died down again, as if she had just skirted around someone in her haste. "_Well, I'm about to go for a run. I'll be back in time to see you off before you go._"

"Have fun," Jaina said, and then clipped her comm. device back to her belt again and stood up from the bed.

She paced between the bed and the door for a few minutes, thinking that she definitely needed to talk to Zak about Kamino before they left. In truth, she really didn't want him to go, but there was little, she knew, she could do to change his mind. One of the things she loved about him so much was that once he set his mind to something, it was nigh impossible to convince him otherwise.

But she had to try.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

_**Comforting Gesture**_

The door clicked shut behind Zak when he entered his and Jaina's room later that day. After packing as much as he thought he would need for a brief stay on Kamino, he'd taken his lightsaber to the sparring chamber in the Praxeum's main building and spent a couple of hours trading blows with Tash and Mara-Jade Skywalker.

Zak hadn't paid particular attention to his sister's training in the time they had been at the academy. He disappointed himself in that regard; she was his older sister, and therefore it would have been the right thing to at least know where she was up to, if she was ahead of or behind him in skill.

During the sparring, he finally had the chance to see how good she was.

Zak himself had an adequate knowledge of all seven lightsaber combat forms, from the determination form of Shii-Cho to the ferocity form of Vaapad. But because of the nature of his weapon, and the fact that he knew that there was a darkness within him from his encounter with Darth Pravus years ago, Zak had chosen Vaapad and the resilience form of Soresu as his main fighting styles. He had grown quite proficient in the use of both styles, mostly Soresu to the point that even Luke Skywalker had to work to get past his defences to land a hit.

But Tash, he soon found, had advanced past him. Not only had she learned all seven forms of lightsaber combat, but she displayed advanced skill with Soresu, the aggression form of Ataru and the contention form of Makashi. Not only that, but Zak found that Tash was able to switch between those forms, and the others, so fluidly that it often caught him off-guard and he would spend the next few strikes trying to compensate for the new set of sequences and manoeuvres that she was pushing on him. She was quick, and he had to be quicker to get his blades around in time to parry and block her strikes.

Zak could tell that Mara-Jade was holding back, though whether it was because she doubted his skill was sufficient to hold his own or because she didn't see the point into putting everything she had into a sparring match, he didn't know. Regardless, she wasn't easy on him either. Several times, he felt the heat of her lightsaber's blade brush ever-so-close to his skin, sizzling through the fabric of his top and leaving blackened gashes in the material when he wasn't quick enough to move out of the way in time.

Tash was able to get in a few of the same, and Zak scored a couple of low-heat strikes against Tash's skin and came close to hitting Mara-Jade once or twice.

After finishing the bout, Skywalker had sat both Arrandas down and spoken to them about their fighting styles, offering appropriate praise and critiquing where necessary, and suggesting that they both work on their preferred styles until they were as close to perfect as they were ever going to get. Then she'd let them go with a smile on her face.

Now that he was back in his quarters, Zak gave some serious thought to returning to his meditation and reflection. He was determined to improve himself to the point of being worthy of the honour Luke Skywalker was recommending for him and his sister. But he and Jaina were leaving soon, and there was no time for it at the moment. Also, he knew that there would be no time for it on the flight to Kamino.

The personal yacht that belonged to himself and Jaina Solo was unique in that it possessed—in the place of a hyperdrive engine—an engine that—for lack of a better explanation—folded space around them and allowed perfectly instantaneous travel between destinations. There was no travel time, no hyperspace. Zak and Jaina were still at a loss to explain to their friends, or the New Republic mechanics that had looked over it on the _Corellian Glory_, how it worked. He couldn't speak for Jaina, of course, but Zak didn't like that he didn't know how this piece of machinery worked.

True, he'd had to resign himself to the fact that a lot of the mechanical know-how he had had become obsolete and out of date after he and Tash had been released from their cryonic prisons. He'd adapted to that, however, with help from Jaina Solo and the Wookiee, Lowbacca. But even so, there were some things—like the _Silent Hunter_'s lightslip drive, as Jaina had dubbed it—that continued to confound him. It was at those times that he really, truly resented what had happened to him and his sister; he was otherwise grateful for having had the chance to be with Jaina.

His musings were interrupted when a sharp knock on the door sounded. "It's open," he called to the door before splashing water against his face from the cistern in the corner.

He heard the sound of the door latch releasing and the faint _whoosh_ of the door breezing open to admit the visitor, before he heard the reverse sounds of it being closed, and the quieted footsteps padding halfway across the room towards him.

Instinctively, he reached out with the Force to touch the mind of the visitor just briefly enough to learn their identity, and was shocked to discover that it was none other than Tenel Ka. Slowly, he turned to face her, a smile on his face.

"This is an unexpected event," he said cheerfully.

While it was true that he had formed a somewhat good friendship with the Solos' friends, Tenel Ka and Lowbacca, to date it was still rare and unheard of that either of them sought him out. They hung out whenever one or both of the Solos were around as well, but that had been the extent of the friendship the Arrandas had with them. Zak was actually glad to see that Tenel Ka had taken the initiative.

Not that he wouldn't have done so himself eventually.

Tenel Ka returned his smile with one of her own, and a couple of her many braids slipped over her shoulder to the front. Frowning, she flicked them behind her with a hand gesture and sat down at the work desk in the corner of the room that Zak frequently used for his theory studies.

That was when he suspected her motives.

"What can I do for you?" he asked politely, drying his face off on a hand towel and seating himself on the edge of the bed opposite the Hapan heiress.

"About this trip you and Jaina are taking," Tenel Ka started cautiously. This time it was Zak's turn to frown, and he didn't try to conceal it from her. "Now, now …" she started in admonishment.

"Jaina put you up to this, didn't she?" he asked coolly.

"Not at all." Tenel Ka stiffened, insulted by the accusation that she had to be _told_ to do anything. Zak graced her with an apologetic look and didn't allow the frown to return to his face.

"Sorry for the implication," he said sincerely. "But when she's been on my case about it since Master Skywalker suggested it, naturally I become suspicious when friends of hers come knocking for the same reason."

"I am also a friend of yours, Zak," she reminded him. "Do not call that into question on account of Jaina's opinions of your decision."

Zak sighed, pushed himself up from the bedspread and walked over to the plexiglass shuttered window. Looking through the clear material, he could see the courtyard below; it was lit up brightly to simulate standard day, and there were a few of his newer peers out there practicing their martial or telekinetic abilities. He missed those days. Nowadays when he felt the urge to practice, it was usually in the designated chambers within the Praxeum building itself and usually with someone else assisting in some way.

Zak ran a hand over his face, wiping away his frustration with Jaina's stubborn refusal to support her Uncle's suggestion for him. "You're right," he said, not turning to face Tenel Ka, but putting across as much apology as he could. "I'm sorry."

He turned around to face her and she nodded, accepting his apology. "What is it exactly that you wanted to talk about regarding my trip?"

"I just wanted to give you the chance to voice any reservations regarding your reason for going to Kamino," she offered diplomatically. "Surely there must be at least the smallest measure of doubt. It would be understandable that you have not talked to Jaina about it, as it would serve only to fuel her opinions. And with Jacen and your sister otherwise occupied, and Master Skywalker already at Kamino, that doesn't leave you many options."

Zak sighed. "No. No it doesn't. I don't want to burden the Skywalkers with it either."

"Entirely understandable, given the circumstances," Tenel Ka stated plainly. She laced her fingers together in her lap, and Zak almost laughed at how … _proper_ it looked. "So, speak your mind."

Zak hesitated, and during that hesitation, his gaze drew his attention to the stump of her left arm, covered over by the custom, single long sleeve of her shirt. He knew the circumstances behind the injury, of course.

Jacen and Tenel Ka had been practice-duelling with their newly constructed lightsabers some years ago. Tenel Ka, by her own admission, had built a flawed weapon. When Jacen's blade swung towards hers, her lightsaber had switched off of its own accord and allowed Jacen's blade to pass by and sever her arm. It was a mistake they had each blamed themselves for at first, until realising that neither was at any real fault, and Tenel Ka had taken the experience as a learning opportunity.

Zak knew that the reason Tenel Ka had refused a prosthetic replacement wasn't because the technology disgusted her, but because the deformity would force her to adapt her technique to encompass it, a challenge he knew she would have risen to gladly and overcome.

"Does that still hurt?" he asked, redirecting his gaze to her face. "Even after so long?"

"Not really," she said. "I get the occasional twinge but it's not common enough to report as a discomfort." It struck Zak that she hadn't asked the reason behind his inquiry, and so he assumed that she knew the reason behind it.

"I'm worried about the same thing," he admitted quietly.

"About losing an arm?" Tenel Ka said with a humorous smile. "I thought you were going to have your brain looked at."

"Very funny," Zak said. "I am. And that's what scares me. The procedure hasn't even been tested, apparently, and I'm supposed to be the trial run. What if I lose something important? It mightn't even be deliberate. It might be an unforeseen side effect of trying to recover what I've lost thus far."

"I'm sure the Kaminoans wouldn't even suggest it unless they were sure it would have no negative side effects."

"Not the same as saying they wouldn't suggest it unless they were sure it would work," Zak pointed out.

"No," Tenel Ka admitted, "I guess not. But, Zak, the Kaminoans have been pretty top notch with their technology. They're perfectionists."

"True …"

Tenel Ka got up from the seat she was seated in and waved an absent hand towards it to tuck it back under the study desk as she approached him and gently lay a comforting hand on his shoulder to reassure him. He looked down at it, and then back up into Tenel Ka's grey eyes with a smile. The Solos really did know how to pick their friends.

"I'm sure everything will be all right, Zak. And I'm sure Jaina feels the same way, and that her disapproval has nothing at all to do with the _unlikely_ possible side effects of the procedure." The way she emphasised "unlikely" left no room for Zak to argue the point any further, and he nodded in silent appreciation of her optimism.

"Thanks, Tenel," he said.

She smiled again at him and lowered her hand. "Any time, Zak." She paused as she crossed her arm across her chest and held onto her left forearm to keep it in place—her way of crossing her arms. "Jacen should be coming down from _Glory_ sometime before you go to wish you well."

"I know. But I told him that if he couldn't make it then it was fine and that I would catch up with him when we get back from Kamino." Tenel Ka nodded and lowered her arm again to her side. "If there was nothing else, though, I should gather up a few more things for the trip."

"Sure," the girl replied. "I'll come see you both at the hangar when you leave."

With that, she turned and strode casually from the room, pausing outside only long enough to shut the door physically behind her.

When Zak felt her presence begin its descent to the ground floor in the dormitory's central lift tube, he released a great breath of relief and allowed himself to collapse backwards on the bedspread, his arms out wide to either side of him. He spent the next few minutes like that, staring up at the ceiling as if it would help him gain the confidence he needed to live up to Skywalker's expectations of him.

The one thing he realised he now feared was that this procedure he was about to succumb to might make him less worthy of being a Jedi …


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

_**Departure**_

Everything had been loaded aboard the _Silent Hunter_ by Artoo by now, and all that was really needed was for them to say their temporary farewells before they departed to rendezvous with Luke on Kamino.

Jaina saw that, true to his word, Jacen Solo had taken a break from flying with the _Corellian Glory_ patrols to come down and see them. Tenel Ka, Rebekah Jordan and Tash were there as well, and all of them had smiles on their faces, whether genuine or not. Jaina was the only one not smiling, and she sensed that it gnawed into Zak's psyche.

Zak had already finished saying goodbye to them all and was waiting for Jaina to finish up when her aunt, Mara, walked into the hangar briskly and made a beeline for their little group. Jaina's attention was at once focussed on her expression, which was drawn. Her irritation was definitely showing, and she felt Zak begin to quickly go through all the possibilities of what it could have been that had set her off.

He'd only gone through half of the possibilities when Mara reached them, hands on her hips and looking around at them all. Not a one of them had missed her mood.

"What's wrong, Master Skywalker?" Zak asked carefully.

Swiftly, she drew a communicator from her pocket and clicked it on. A sharp squeal of static met all of their ears, high and piercing, and Jaina used the Force to dull the sound to her ears so that it would not deafen her.

"That," Mara started, "is what's wrong. Luke was supposed to check in with me an hour ago to check your departure time so that he could inform the Kaminoan Prime Minister. He missed his check-in time so I tried to contact him instead."

"But all you seem to get is that static?" Jaina said with a wince. She reached for the comm. device. "May I?"

Mara handed over the device and Jaina turned it over in her hands, fiddling with dials and buttons but yielding no result. "Definitely coming from the source. You think it's some kind of signal jammer?"

"_Stang_, I hope not," Mara swore. "The Kaminoans have no reason to block our transmissions, especially not when they have a potential client. If it _is_ a signal jammer, then it's probably someone who set it up _deliberately_ to prevent Luke from contacting anyone."

Across the bond, Jaina felt Zak think about this, and then try to reach out to contact Luke through the Force. It was something she and Jacen had been trying to get him to attempt for months, something that they had been able to do a few time to positive effect.

She followed his feelings until he managed to reach far enough to sense Luke, but neither of them sensed the things Jaina expected to sense in someone who was deliberately being prevented from contacting anyone; not frustration or worry or curiosity.

"He feels fine to me," Zak said, opening his eyes and looking around at them all. "Is it possible the storms on Kamino could be stirring up some interference?"

Mara thought about it. "I guess," she said slowly. "The atmosphere of Kamino isn't really most ideal place to make a long range communication. Especially with as far removed as we are here." Jaina sensed that her aunt's irritation died somewhat, but not entirely. "I _was_ going to ask Daniel to take the _Glory_ along with you to determine the possibility of an Imperium presence there. But if it's a natural phenomenon, I don't want to upset the Kaminoans."

"We'll find out while we're there," Jaina assured her with a smile.

"I'd appreciate that a lot, Jaina," Mara said, returning her smile. Zak nodded beside her and briefly shook the Jedi Master's hand before he turned and made his way up the boarding ramp of the _Silent Hunter_. Jaina was a couple of steps behind him, and lingered at the top of the ramp just long enough to hit the controls to retract it before she followed Zak up the short lift tube to the top deck and then to the cockpit at the front.

Without a word to one another, but using the link between them rather than the Force to coordinate, they brought the _Hunter_ to life and initiated the takeoff. Within minutes, they had left the planetoid's atmosphere and were making way to a safe jump point well beyond the _Corellian Glory_'s patrol route. The great ship itself, in accordance with its route, was headed in their direction. Jaina knew that it would pass by overhead with plenty of room to breathe.

"I wish you would reconsider," she said disapprovingly. Zak didn't respond to her statement as he continued tweaking the navigational controls in front of him, beginning the calculations needed to make the jump to Kamino. "And ignoring me isn't going to make me shut up about it!" she scolded.

She was all-too-aware of just how reserved he was about her uncle's recommendation that Zak be elevated to Jedi apprentice. Possibly no one else could possibly know him as well as she could with the link between them. And though he was known to close if off to her whenever she got to close to using it to fuel her arguments of late, he wasn't doing so now.

So when Luke had suggested that he could make the trip to Kamino to see if they were able to help him recover the last of his forgotten memories, and Zak had jumped at the chance, Jaina had taken it as a personal affront. Thus far, she, Jacen and the others had been more than adequate help in Zak's quest to recover those memories. All of them had taught him different meditative techniques that he could use. And though he was more than grateful for that help, it had only helped him recover just under ninety percent of his lost memory. Jaina and her uncle both saw that as massive improvement, contrary to the odds the Praxeum's medical droid, GH-7-421—or Geesev—had stated that he would be more likely to never recover that much. But Zak still didn't think it was good enough, and he fought them all on the issue and refused to be impressed by his efforts.

As much as she didn't want to admit it to herself, such an attitude scared Jaina at times. It was an ever-present reminder of the darker side that had exploded to life after Brakiss' brutal treatment of them five years ago, and a reminder that that dark side would always be with him. But even though Zak was eager to become a Jedi, and he was quick to learn the most essential of Jedi behaviour and abide by it, his quest for self perfection was almost Sith-like.

Personally, Jaina would prefer Zak not recover the last memories. The only thing he seemed to have forgotten by her recollection was what had started the brutal, agonisingly long fight between him and all three of the Solos. Jaina knew that the knowledge would only upset him. She still had the scar from that night, though it was only small and unnoticeable unless you were actually trying to find it.

"You're ignoring me," she shot at him, thumping him gently on the shoulder to grab his diverted attention.

"No, I'm not," Zak said with a defeated sigh. "I heard every word you said."

"A response would have been appreciated."

"To what end?" Zak quizzed, looking over the holonav projector between them. His left eyebrow was arched sceptically. "We had this discussion already … many times. Always, we disagree."

Jaina sighed. "Fine." She fiddled with the lightslip drive controls to the left of her board. "But don't think that I've given up on this issue. We'll have plenty of time at Kamino to continue _disagreeing_ about this," she added.

"Part of why I love you so much," Zak replied, grinning.

"Suck up."

"You know it," he said before returning his attention to the nav board in front of him.

Jaina sighed again and returned her gaze to the pilot board she was sitting in front of. "Jump coordinates?" she requested.

"Patching through to you now."

Jaina received them and input them into the lightslip drive jump data. "Ready to go when you are."

Through the transparisteel viewport in front of them, Jaina watched a trio of X-wing snubfighters pass by overhead between them and the underside of the _Corellian Glory_'s hull. She felt a sense of longing when she looked at them.

It had been far too long since she had enjoyed a simple flight in her own X-wing. The last time she had actually piloted a ship of any kind had been hers and Jacen's trip to Coruscant. But that hadn't been quite enough for her. The _Recluse_ was a Sentinel-class transport, used by the Empire and adopted by the New Republic to transport troops and equipment between destinations, and as such, it wasn't exactly rated for the high-G manoeuvres and stunts that a star fighter was capable of. Since then, she'd been too preoccupied with helping Zak with his memory recovery.

To that end, she vowed to herself that as soon as she returned from Kamino, she was going to log a few hours in her own fighter stored in the subterranean hanger beneath the Praxeum grounds—purely recreationally.

"Punch it," Zak said.

Jaina gripped the drive lever and gently eased it forward before releasing it and letting it gently slide back into its original slot. The _Silent Hunter_ lurched forward, pinning their backs to their seats momentarily before the ship slowed again a second later to the same speed it had been travelling before.

"Well," Jaina started, looking out through the viewport to the planet in the distance which was growing steadily bigger as they approached. "Here we are, ladies and gentlemen; Kamino. Weather forecast for today is a chilly"—she paused for a second to check the readouts over Zak's shoulder—"seventeen degrees, accompanied by planet-wide thunderstorms and heavy rain."

Zak chuckled next to her as Jaina skilfully piloted the _Hunter_ down into the uppermost layers of Kamino's wet atmosphere.

The comm. line crackled to life.

"_Unidentified gunship, this is the Kamino Landing Authority. You have entered restricted space without forewarning. Please state your identity and your business here, or kindly do leave the system at once._"

"I'm picking up auto-turret locks," Zak said uncertainly after moving to the port-side weapons station. "Friendly bunch, aren't they?"

"They like their privacy," Jaina pointed out, then smiled. She reached out to the comm. station behind her and pressed down on the transceiver with her mind. "This is Jedi Knight Jaina Solo aboard the _privately owned_ transport; _Silent Hunter_," she started formally. "I am ferrying Zak Arranda to a scheduled appointment. We are transmitting the authorisation code provided to us by your Prime Minster."

She waited for Zak to dart across the deck to the comm. station to transmit the code, and then waited still for the Kaminoan Landing Authority officer to respond to it.

"_Your authorisation is noted as valid, _Silent Hunter_. You have been cleared for arrival on landing pad three. A representative will be awaiting you._" Pause, then, "_Welcome to Kamino._"

_CLICK._

"Well …" Zak started. "Thanks, I guess."

"Friendly," Jaina reminded him with a sardonic smile.

Nonetheless, Zak returned to his seat, and as they approached Tipoca City, the planet's capitol, Jaina directed the _Silent Hunter_ into a single orbit around the perimeter in order to give Zak a good look before making her way to the designated platform.

"There's Uncle Luke's ship," Jaina pointed out as they passed over another landing pad. Looking down, Zak saw the familiar X-wing star fighter that looked like it had seen so much action across the years, and an R5 astromech droid borrowed from the Praxeum tending maintenance on it while Luke was, presumably, inside.

"What is _that_?" Zak asked, pausing from his nav readings to point to a platform on the farthest side of the landing area as possible to Luke Skywalker's X-wing.

Jaina followed his finger's direction and saw that on the platform in question sat … nothing.

"What is what?" Jaina asked. She squinted her eyes, thinking that what he was pointing out to her was smaller than she could otherwise detect. "I don't see anything," she said to him with a shrug. She started the landing procedures once the _Hunter_ was hovering above their designated landing platform.

"You don't see it?" Zak said, bewildered as he continued to stare at the distant platform. "Seriously? You don't see that?" He pointed again.

"See what?"

He let out a frustrated sigh and stabbed a command into the control board before him. The holonav between them lit up with a layout of the city, with each of the landing platforms numbered. He looked out through the window, and Jaina could hear him muttering numbers under his breath as he counted the distance between them and the platform he had indicated twice now. He then fingered the holonav projection and spun the image around and counted the platforms again.

"What are you doing?" Jaina asked him.

"I'm going to go check that out, first chance I get," he said without looking up at her. He shut down the holonav again.

Jaina shook her head in disapproval, but knew there was nothing she could say to discourage him from doing so. Instead, she focussed on the landing procedure and rotated the ship enough so that the landing ramp, when lowered, would face the catwalk leading from the platform to the city proper.

As expected, thunderclouds were thick; dark and grey and foreboding overhead, and the rain splattered with unforgiving ferocity against the transparisteel viewport at the front of the cockpit. A winged cetacean creature, an aiwha if Jaina remembered her studies correctly, skimmed across the turbulent ocean surface near the city, dipping its open jaws into the water to scoop up an unsuspecting fish or two.

"One would think there'd have been land here at some point," Zak said. Jaina unclipped her safety straps with the Force, but did not dare to slip out of them until the ship had touched down. "Unless the Kaminoans are amphibious."

"You haven't been reading up on all of your planetary history," Jaina pointed out. "Kamino used to be just like any other planet with equal parts water and land. No one's sure what caused it, but some great cataclysm caused all of the landmasses to flood and, now, the only 'land' on this world is three or more kilometres under the ocean."

"Wow," Zak breathed.

There was a dull jolt as the landing gear touched down on the platform and took the _Hunter_'s weight. Zak began the shutdown procedure from the navigation control board while Jaina slipped out of her safety straps and started her own portion of the shutdown.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

_**Prime Minister**_

A couple of minutes later, having shut the ship down entirely and locked the access hatch at the apex of the boarding ramp, Zak and Jaina were running along the connecting walkway to the city, their cloaks bundled around them and their hoods drawn all the way forward in vain efforts to protect them from the torrential rain. When they got closer to the first of the clustered dome buildings, the doors opened and they dashed through them before they closed again.

"Welcome to Kamino," a distinctly high and feminine voice greeted them before they even looked up. Jaina looked up at once and threw her hood back to see that their welcoming committee—really just a welcom_er_—was standing before them.

She shook her hair out from under the robe and let it fall behind her as Zak drew his own hood back and looked up at the Kaminoan as well.

"Wow!" he said, noting on the Kaminoan's height more than anything else.

To Jaina, Kaminoans looked deceptively frail creatures. Their arms and legs were long and thin, and they long, thin necks connecting a small head to their bodies. Their almond-shaped eyes dominated a good portion of their faces, and the irises were coloured different depending on class; the Kaminoan standing before them had dark grey eyes. Their noses naught but slits above their usually small mouths.

However, Jaina knew that a Kaminoan could move with far more grace and poise naturally than even the best groomed human could ever be capable of.

This particular specimen before them wore a long white gown—or robe—with lighter blue stripes over the shoulders and down the front to the waist.

"It is an honour to be able to see your planet first hand," Zak replied, bowing respectfully.

Jaina followed suit with the respectful bow, and the welcomer returned the gesture by merely bowing her head and neck. "I am your guide for the duration of your visit to our world," she started. "My name is Loru Fa."

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance," Zak started. "My name is Zak Arranda and this is my partner, Jaina Solo."

The Kaminoan woman nodded by way of acknowledgement and turned to lead them down the corridor to the left of them.

"The Jedi have indeed come a long way since our peoples' last interactions with the Order. Your relationship would have been discouraged in the days of the Old Republic."

Jaina wasn't sure how to reply to that statement. It wasn't really an admonishment against the New Jedi Order in any way. If anything, it sounded as though the Kaminoan woman was simply trying to ease them by discussing something that wasn't about their visit. Jaina was OK with that, and she sensed that Zak was relieved by it.

But she was right, of course. The Old Jedi Order had discouraged, even prohibited, Jedi within the Order from having relationships. It was their strong belief that attachment left one open to the influences and temptations of the dark side. At times, Jaina thought it was quite apt. But her uncle had dismissed it when establishing the New Order. He had obviously recognised that attachments could, if balanced with the rest of the Jedi beliefs, make one stronger, instead of vulnerable.

"It is … gratifying to see that the galaxy's justice keepers are indeed able to feel, and that they are not afraid of expressing those feelings," Loru Fa went on. Quite the statement from someone who was of a species that didn't experience emotions. "I remember but one Jedi from the Old Order who was much like the Jedi today; a young general named Skywalker. My people have a great respect for his deeds … before he lost his way." They turned a corner into another corridor and passed a pair of blue-eyed labourer Kaminoans debating a work order on a holopad between them. "It is why we feel indebted to his continuing lineage."

"He did do great things at one point," Jaina said softly. It didn't go unheard by Zak and Loru Fa, but neither of them replied to the statement. "With respect, Loru Fa; where are you taking us?"

"Your Master Skywalker is in a meeting with Prime Minister Koa Ne right now, and I am taking you directly to them," their host replied, turning her head to look over her shoulder at them, though she did not stop walking.

Jaina looked over at Zak to see that as they walked, he was eyeing every inch of the hallway that was in sight. She could sense, even without the Force to help her, exactly how impressed he was with the inside of the building. His mouth was agape and his eyes were wide with wonder, awe. She suppressed a smile, but he sensed it nonetheless and looked down at her grinning from ear to ear before locking his eyes on a second pair of passing labourers and watching as they continued past them and down an adjoining corridor.

"You are impressed?" Loru Fa asked suddenly, looking over her shoulder again at Zak.

"'Impressed' doesn't seem to do it justice," he admitted graciously. "I've never seen buildings quite like it. It's like the walls are one with the floors and ceilings; like it's one big block of durasteel that you've just carved hallways into and then moulded into perfect smoothness using sculptors."

"An inaccurate guess," Loru Fa replied, looking ahead again and missing the raised-eyebrow look Zak shot her, "but the parallel you have drawn upon is commending."

"You're welcome?" Zak said hesitantly.

Jaina giggled briefly and they continued onwards without pause.

A few minutes later, they were ushered into the grand chamber of the Kaminoan Prime Minister; Koa Ne. Koa Ne was slightly taller than Loru Fa, also with dark grey eyes. A single crest went down the centre of his scalp.

Contrary to what his administrative aide, Loru Fa, was wearing, the Prime Minister wore a tight fitting leather-and-rubber suit, covered over at the chest by a plate made from what Jaina thought looked like cortosis fibre. Extending from the top of the plate was the outfit's collar, which was round, comfortably padded on the inside, low at the front and reaching up to the base of the neck at the back. Wrapped around Koa Ne's waist was a bantha-fur kilt of sorts, opened at the front and clipped together with a broach that was blue and gold with a silver swirl.

Without waiting to be introduced, Jaina immediately bent at the waist in deference to the state leader, and Zak followed suit immediately. Koa Ne and Luke Skywalker both turned to see them rise again, and the Prime Minister bowed his head and neck in return to them as the rest of his body turned to the direction he was looking.

"Prime Minister," Luke started, gesturing toward Jaina and Zak, "I'd like to introduce you to my niece, Jaina Solo, and her partner—and a good friend of mine—Zak Arranda."

Zak's cheeks flushed a little at being introduced in such a manner, and Jaina smiled as they slowly approached the Prime Minister.

Jaina heard the door behind them shut, but not the steps of following footsteps, which meant that Loru Fa had left to take care of other business, or was otherwise waiting outside.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," the Prime Minister said, bowing his head again and reaching out toward Jaina.

Though she reached back on instinct and allowed the Kaminoan leader to give her hand once short, gentle pump, she was alarmed that he had even proffered his hand at all. She saw, from the look on her uncle's face when Koa Ne turned to shake Zak's hand afterward, that he was just as surprised. Kaminoans usually refrained from physical contact with other, _imperfect_ species.

"It's an honour, mister Prime Minister," Zak said to him. Quickly, Jaina drew in on herself and rearranged her features so that the Kaminoan would not recognise her surprise.

There was silence for a minute as Jaina watched Zak fight not to squirm under the examining gaze of the Kaminoan leader. When he was done, Koa Ne clasped his hands together and turned back to Luke, recognising that he was the senior of the three Jedi.

"Mister Arranda seems to be in top physical condition for a young man of his age. I am quite impressed. But then, I suppose being a Jedi-in-training works to his favour." He turned back to Zak, and Jaina couldn't miss the cringe as he set his gaze on him. Zak either didn't notice it or didn't show any recognition. Either way, Jaina filed it away for further investigation. "Are you still intent to go forth with this procedure, young Jedi?" he asked Zak gently.

"If it is still possible," Zak said with a look to Jaina. She bit her tongue to keep her dissent to herself and Zak nodded, knowing that she would have words to him later.

"It is. We will need the afternoon to prepare, but your first treatment could be logged in for tomorrow morning."

"That sounds great." Zak looked to Luke Skywalker and smiled, and then to Jaina again, doing the same. She frowned at him for his nerve, and swore silently to herself. He was going to pay for that. She saw him pale a little when he read her intentions in her thoughts, and then he swallowed hard and turned back to the Prime Minister.

The Kaminoan cringed again, and Jaina desperately fought the urge to dive into his thoughts and discover the reason for that. Surely, even to a Kaminoan, Zak wasn't particularly _ugly_. But she resisted. Koa Ne was entitled to his privacy just as any other sentient being not under criminal suspicion was.

Zak picked up on the reaction this time. "Is there something wrong, mister Prime Minister?" he asked, a cloud of confusion masking his features. All his expression needed to be comic, Jaina thought, was for him to reach up and start deftly scratching his scalp.

Koa Ne stiffened, caught out in his—twice now—reaction to Zak. Now that it had been voiced, he was either going to have to explain himself, which Jaina found highly unlikely, or brush it off as nothing.

The Kaminoan surprised her, however, with what he said next. "Oh, it's nothing," he said. "You remind me of a man who visited here once before. It … takes effort getting used to the similarities when he was … kind of a friend."

"Oh," Zak said. Jaina couldn't tell if it was a lie or not. That frustrated her, and she went over the comment in her mind every which way she could think of in order to discern a lie. "If it is alright with you, Prime Minister," Zak started, drawing Jaina's attention back to them both, "I would really like to see more of the city. It's amazing."

"Of course," Koa Ne said with a sweeping motion of his hand. The motion carried his hand over a control panel on the chair in the middle of the room and the door to the chamber opened like a three-petal flower to admit Loru Fa.

"Yes, Prime Minister?" she said in a cheerful tone.

"Loru Fa, would you be so kind as to show Mister Arranda around the city before he retires to his room? He has expressed an interest in seeing more."

Loru Fa nodded and stepped aside, gesturing to the door. "This way, please."

When Jaina didn't move, Zak turned to give her a questioning look and shrugged. "You go ahead," she said to him with a smile. "I'd like to talk to Uncle Luke some more. I'll see you later."

Smiling back at her, he nodded and followed Loru Fa through the door and was out of sight as it shut behind them. Jaina turned back to the Kaminoan Prime Minister and her uncle and shot them both a smile she hoped wasn't _too_ transparent. "I hope you don't mind if I steal my uncle away from you for a moment, Prime Minister. I just need a quick word."

Koa Ne tipped his head to the side curiously before he held out his hands in a helpless gesture. "He doesn't belong to me," he said before turning and walking to the other side of the chamber to give them some privacy.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

_**Strange Sensation**_

Zak was genuinely interested in everything Loru Fa had to show him. It wasn't as much as he had expected, and he _half_-expected to have been allowed into the genetics sections to grab a sneak peak of their cloning operations—since they _were_ still in the process of building clones for the right price. However, as it turned out, only those clients paying for clones or cloned body parts were allowed into those areas, and even then only minimally. He was, however, shown around the greater city areas, skirting around a construction team of blue-eyed Kaminoans with safety gear heading for the nearest exit to the outside.

"Loru Fa," he started ten minutes after passing the crew when he spotted another blue-eyed Kaminoan performing some form of manual labour.

"Yes?" the graceful Kaminoan woman said, turning her head just enough to see him in the periphery.

"Forgive the bluntness of the question, but does Kaminoan society run on a sort of caste system?" Zak asked hesitantly, unsure whether or not he would be privy to such information.

He hadn't really red much about Kamino, other than the information about their involvement in the Clone War, and their subsequent insurrection against the Empire years after its end.

Loru Fa paused for a moment, and Zak sensed the hesitation as well as she redirected her gaze forward and picked up the pace a little. Zak guessed that she wasn't going to answer, and he chided himself for having asked the question in the first place. He jogged for a few seconds to catch up to her new pace and then slowed to match her.

"A keen observation, for a young Jedi," Loru Fa replied. Zak was beside her now, rather than behind, and he craned his neck to look up at her, using the Force to ensure that he didn't accidentally crash into anyone in the stark-white corridor. "Yes, we do. It may be an odd way to select which field of work each of us is suited to, but it is done based on the colour of our irises."

"Oh?" Zak pressed, genuinely interested.

"As I am sure you are unaware, our society is bred through science, rather than usual near-human methods. Each of us is grown according to what skills and abilities would be most beneficial to the community."

Zak hung from every word, aware that he was being granted a rather unusual honour. Though he hadn't read up on the New Republic's available information on Kamino as yet, he would have wagered a fortune that what he was hearing now was something he wasn't likely to hear ever, and it was more than likely that Loru Fa was breaching some serious guidelines to educating him.

"Deformities or undesired results are not tolerated," Loru Fa went on, unaware of Zak's internal musings. "But, needless to say, the growth process produces physical appearance differences. Those with abilities suited to administration and upper-level management positions have grey eyes, as you have noticed in both myself and the Prime Minister."

"And blue eyes are the menial labourers?" Zak asked, taking a guess. "Cleaners, construction workers, and the like, no?"

"You are correct," Loru Fa said, and Zak saw a flash of indignation cross her otherwise bland features. It was obvious that she didn't like to be interrupted, or to have her words taken from her before she spoke them herself. "Some of those tasks may be tedious and menial, but they are every bit as important as any other work done in the city."

"I see."

"You may not have noticed it at this particular hour of the day, but there is another eye colour present in our species. Those of us with yellow eyes are more properly suited to positions of science, research, and sometimes even diplomacy."

"So, if I were to draw comparisons with … say, Coruscant life; grey eyes would be the upper class citizens, yellow would be the middle class, and blue would be the lower class."

"If you must draw that comparison," the tall woman replied stiffly. Zak could tell he had inadvertently offended her. "But here, we try to view each citizen as the same, regardless of the type of work they do. The "lesser class", as you call them, are just as important as the "upper class" here, because it is those lesser that keep everything in the city functioning, clean, efficient."

"Perfect?" Zak added.

"If you like." They rounded another corner, passing an open, empty lab full of clean table tops and empty beakers and tubes. Loru Fa then stopped and turned to face Zak. "This concludes your tour of our city, Mister Arranda," she said, clasping her hands together. "I do hope that it has been informative and enjoyable."

"Oh, it most certainly has," Zak said with a grin. He knew that Kaminoans didn't necessarily feel strong emotions, or any at all, but he guessed that they were able to identify it just as readily as anyone else.

Curiously, he looked around the corridor, and spotted a location marker in Galactic Basic on the wall near a sealed hatch. His heart leapt into his throat when he realised that they were very close to the landing pad Zak had wanted to take a look at. An odd idea came to him, and he turned back to his guide with a smile in place.

"Could I make a request?" he started, gently nudging her psyche with his mind, trying to get her mind to open up to suggestion.

"Certainly." She gestured with the response, and blinked her large eyes down at him, waiting for his request.

Zak prodded again, and felt the satisfying sinking feeling as that portion of her mind opened. "I wanted to check out landing platform nine," he started. And now, he thought, for the explanation. "During approach, I noticed that platform nine had an excellent view of the city, and I just wanted to see if my thoughts would hold up or not in practice."

She hesitated, longer than Zak would have liked to be sure that his suggestion was sinking in and taking root. But it worked. Eventually, she nodded and guided him down the corridor to a lift tube with a gentle "This way, please."

* * *

It was still pouring rain when they arrived at the door leading out onto the platform. It was open now, waiting for him to step through onto the catwalk and into the wet. He drew his cloak tight, yanked his hood up over his head, and then turned to Loru Fa, who stood stock still behind him, fingers laced together and a semi-vacant expression on her face.

"You don't have to come with," Zak assured her, pretending to think that she didn't relish the thought of getting wet. In fact, he was really placing another subtle suggestion. "I won't be out there for long," he assured her, which was truth.

After a second of hesitation, Loru Fa nodded, and Zak turned and left the building.

He erected a weak shield around him to protect from most of the rain, but he didn't want to exert too much energy in complete protection. He needed his senses for other things as well at the moment, such as trying to identify what it was that he had seen earlier as Jaina had made a pass around the city.

But, as he approached the end of the catwalk and the start of the platform itself, he could see that whatever he had seen before was no longer there. There was no dark, blurry shape of an unknown ship; nothing at all in fact.

"Strange," he said to himself. Shaking his head, he pushed forward.

He figured that there would be some sign on the platform that there had been a ship there. He was sure that, had he actually seen one and it had since departed the wet planet, that there would be minimal scorching or heating from the engines. And so he looked. First, he thought to check out the outer edges of the platform, but when he saw nothing, he slowly moved inward, eyes darting left and right across the durasteel beneath him, looking for something that was so obviously not present.

Maybe he had been wr—

"Oof!" His face hit something solid and he fell backwards onto his rump, hard.

Frowning, he shook his head and looked up. "Loru—" he started, thinking at first that his Kaminoan guide had come outside to join him after all, and intent on apologising for running into her. But there was nothing and no one there.

Confused, he pushed himself up to his feet, and re-established his protective barrier, which had fallen with his concentration during the suspect impact. He stood still for several moments, thinking over all the possibilities of what had just happened.

The best he could tell, there was nothing in front of him except for—

And then he noticed it.

There _was_ no rain in front of him. He could see rain, sure, but it was at the very least several meters away from where he stood. Looking up, slightly, he saw that the rain was coming down in front of him as well, but abruptly stopped four or five meters off the ground. He knew what that meant at once, and he reached out a hand to confirm it.

His hand made contact with cold metal, and he instinctively pulled it back in disbelief. Cursing silently to himself, he extended his hand again until he felt the cold, wet metal again, and then ran it back and forth across the smooth surface. It was an odd thing, and he had not truly expected a _cloaked_ ship.

But then; if the ship was cloaked, as he suspected, how was it that he had seen it during his and Jaina's approach? She hadn't seen it at all when he had tried to point it out to her, which led him to believe that it had been cloaked even then. But if that was the case, why was it that _he_ had seen it? That was what he couldn't understand.

He started stepping to the side slowly, following the path of his hand across the surface of the invisible ship until he reached what he approximated to be the forward-most part of the ship. He took his hand away and stepped back, looking into the invisible space with a frown as he tried to make himself see what was, and yet was not, there. He had, however, no luck in doing so. Swearing again to himself when it didn't work, he turned and stormed across the catwalk back to the building where, inside, Loru Fa waited for him.

He was just thinking of reporting the invisible ship to Luke and getting an opinion when it hit him.

It was a feeling he had some experience with, but which was a lot stronger than any he had felt before. It was the feeling of the dark side. He had felt similar, though lessened, sensations from both Darth Pravus and Alitha. Describing as "dark side" just seemed the most appropriate way to Zak. It was a bastardisation of the Force; it made him sick to the bottom of his stomach, and, this instance, made it almost painful for Zak to focus on remaining upright and on his feet.

He whirled around and scanned the area with his gaze, which was starting to blur with tears. He fought it, and drew on the Force in an attempt to block out the unfamiliar presence. It didn't work as well as he'd hoped it would, but he was able to stand without effort, and the sickening feeling in his gut lessened to more of a slight nauseating feeling.

Zak took a deep breath, only now realising that he had had trouble breathing, and swiped the tears from his eyes before scanning the area again.

A wisp of dark fog drifted into view directly in front of him, halfway between him and where he had felt the cloaked ship. He took a step back, and dropped his hand to rest on the hilt of his lightsaber, though he did not draw it yet. The dark fog began to take form before him, and in moments he saw the apparition of a man in bulky black robes, hood drawn forward so far that it threw darkness over everything beneath it.

Everything save those piercing yellow eyes.

"_You will _always_ carry me with you,_" the voice hissed so low Zak was sure he had only heard it in his mind. "_No matter what you think you are!_" A horrible cackle rent the air, and the wisp faded away, the dark fog drifting off the edge of the platform and down out of sight.

Zak raced after it, peering down over the edge and taking great breaths to steady his racing heart.

Could it be that he had just seen an apparition of himself—the way he had been when he had proclaimed himself a Lord of the Sith? He couldn't know for sure, and he tried to spot the dark fog down below, but he couldn't see it. It was as though it hadn't been there at all, as though he had imagined it.

Maybe he had. All the stress of those years delving through his own mind to recover lost memories from his time on the dark side of the Force, and the apprehension he felt about the Kaminoans' procedure to help him recover the rest could have been causing him to hallucinate; he could have manifest the apparition himself as a way of expressing his own doubt about the procedure he would soon undertake.

The words the apparition had spoken to him, low and as close to inaudible as they were, seemed to support that theory. Zak was constantly aware of the darker side that still remained within him from his brush with the dark side. He strived to keep it under control as best he could, but there was always the fear that the wrong sort of circumstances would bring it back out in him, and that he might not ever come back.

On the other hand, he considered, as he turned back to the catwalk and started back to the building, around the invisible ship. The ship's presence itself meant that Kamino was host to not only he, Jaina and Luke Skywalker. He couldn't claim to know enough about Kamino to judge whether they had ships of their own, but if he were to guess, he could at least say that they didn't use cloaking technology. From his studies, he knew that the Empire, the Sith, and the Imperial Remnant (before joining the Republic) had all used cloaking technology when it was necessary to manipulate people outside of their own.

Perhaps the fact that an unknown, and as yet unmentioned visitor, was present—and in possession of such extraordinary cloaking technology—had something to do with what Zak had just witnessed. He gave small consideration to the possibility that a Dark Jedi—or perhaps a new apprentice of Alitha's—owned that ship, and that they were keeping watch of it.

If that were the case, then they were watching Zak now. It would definitely explain the strength of the dark side presence he had felt moments ago. While true he would have felt a darksider's presence for light years—if they wanted him to—this one instance was strong enough to hint to the fact that they were closer a little closer to home. If they had been watching him, and they were strong enough in the dark side, it was possible they could have created that illusion.

But then how would they have known to use Zak's fear of his own dark side against him? He kept that bit of himself locked up so tightly not even the best Force-telepaths could touch it.

It had to be his own fears playing against him.

Stepping back into the building, he shook the contradicting thoughts from his mind and looked up at Loru Fa, who by now was looking like his hold on her had faded. In fact, she looked confused—horrified, possibly?—about where she was standing, and why.

When she saw him, though, she blinked rapidly. "Mister Arranda?" she said, puzzled. "Why are we here?"

"You don't remember?" Zak said, putting in a touch of his own feigned confusion. "I asked if we could come here because I thought it had a good view of the city."

Loru Fa looked around for a second; her search through her own memory manifesting physically. Zak could tell when she found what she was looking for, because her dark eyes fluttered and she put a hand to her head. "My apologies. It must have slipped my mind."

"That's OK," Zak said. "The view _was_ pretty spectacular."

"I am glad you appreciate our city," Loru Fa said only half honestly. "Would you care to be shown to your quarters?"

"Actually, I'd like to go see Master Skywalker first," Zak replied. Loru Fa nodded and turned to lead him down the corridor and back towards the centre of the building without a word. Zak fell in step beside and slightly behind her and followed in measured silence.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

_**Sight**_

Luke looked up when Zak entered the room with the Prime Minister's personal aide less than three hours after his meeting with Koa Ne ended. Zak bore a childlike expression of glee on his face that Luke immediately saw through, and guessed must have been in place for his hostess' benefit.

Luke smiled to them both and invited them in, redundant as the invitation was by that point. Loru Fa, however, remained by the doorway, and Zak turned to face her.

"I'll be all right," he said, still smiling. "I'm sure I'll find my way to my quarters from here." He bowed to the slender Kaminoan woman, got a bow of the head and neck in return, and they both turned away from one another: Loru Fa to leave the room through the still-open door and Zak to Luke.

When the door shut behind the Kaminoan, Zak's smile dropped immediately and he slumped down onto the nearest comforter.

"Why do I get the feeling you're not here just to thank me for giving you the opportunity to come here?" Luke asked as he made his way over to the caf dispenser in the corner of the suite and poured two mugs of the steaming hot beverage.

He handed one mug over to Zak and kept the other for himself as he seated himself down opposite Zak and lounged back into the comfortable seat. Zak looked down at the mug he'd been given and wrinkled his nose.

"I don't drink caf," he said simply.

"Have you ever tried it?" Luke asked after taking a sip from his own. Zak frowned, shook his head no, and then took a large gulp from his own cup.

He swirled the caf around in his mouth for a second, and the swallowed it, following it with a satisfied sigh before taking another long gulp.

"So that's two things I've introduced you to now," Luke said with a smirk. "The Force and the goodness of caf."

Zak grinned after swallowing another mouthful of the burning substance and then set the mug down on the shin-high metal table between the two of them. Like Luke, he took comfort in the chair that supported him. It looked almost as though he would fall asleep before long, if not for the fact that he started talking.

"I seek your guidance, M—Luke," Zak started.

"As a friend or a Jedi?"

"A Jedi," Zak clarified. Luke nodded; it was nothing to do with the procedure he would soon undertake.

"What can I do for you, Zak?"

Zak hesitated, and reached up to scratch an itch, or a perceived itch, to the side of his chin before he spoke again. "I … felt something—earlier."

"Go on."

"I'll start from the beginning," Zak said, sitting forward in the seat and clamping his hands onto his knees for support. "When Jaina and I were approaching the city landing area, I thought I saw something on a far platform. When I tried to point it out to Jaina, she insisted that there was nothing there at all. So, while Loru Fa was taking me on a tour, I kind of suggested a side trip to that platform. Just a small _suggestion_."

"Unusual that a mind trick would work on a Kaminoan," Luke said thoughtfully.

Zak nodded, undeterred. "So when I got there, I discovered a cloaked ship. Well, at least I think it was a ship. Whatever it was, it was definitely under the cover of an active, and powerful, cloaking device. I took note of it, but—before I go on—how is it possible that I could see it when Jaina couldn't. It stands to reason that if she couldn't see it while looking directly at it; the cloaking device must have been active since before our arrival."

"It's possible you were using the Force, unknowingly, to enhance your vision."

"Force-sight?" Zak asked dubiously.

"Precisely. You may not have intended to do it at all. Perhaps your subconscious developed a reason to thrust the ability upon your conscious mind. You saw the ship, but Jaina, who was not using the Force to enhance her vision, did not. Tell me; were you able to see it earlier when you went to investigate the platform?"

"No. I mean … not precisely, no. I could see the outline based on where the rain disappeared into the ship's cloaking field. If my subconscious saw the need to draw on the Force to help me see it before, why didn't it do it again?"

"Maybe because you already knew what to look for, and could use your other senses. On the approach, you had no such opportunity." Luke paused. While he sensed the relief in Zak's reassurance that he wasn't just imagining things, he could also sense that there was something more serious troubling the young man. He suppressed the smile at a memory of when they had first met on D'vouran all those years ago. "What is troubling you? We can look into the ship later."

This time, the hesitation was longer, and Zak sat back in the comfort of the seat again, as if trying to wrap himself up in it to protect against something malign. The worry and doubt roiled off him like a storm cloud forecasting an imminent hurricane.

"When I was leaving that ship to come back inside, I sensed something … wrong. It's something I felt before in Pravus' and Alitha's presences, only worse."

"You've come to the conclusion that with that ship's presence here, there might be a darksider around?"

"Actually, no," Zak said, surprising him. "I thought about it, yes, but then I came to think that the only darksider left who's shown an interest in me, or you and your family, is Alitha. She wouldn't know that we're here."

"Keep in mind that the Imperium has been unusually quiet these past couple of years. This may be because they are continuing their efforts—hopefully in vain—to locate _us_, or maybe because they have something devilish in mind. They might have been busy planting spies at key points within the Republic, including someone close to the Jedi Finance department. If that's the case, they most definitely know that we're here.

"So, what's bothering you?" Luke repeated, getting back on track.

"What I felt before …" Zak trailed off, looked up at Luke, straight in the eye, and then back down. "It was me. It felt like the way I remember feeling when I was … not myself. Stronger. It made me think: what if the dark side in me is biding its time? What if it's letting me maintain control just long enough that it can build up enough strength to destroy me and take over permanently? Is that possible?"

"No," Luke said without hesitating.

Zak frowned and Luke saw the shadow of that mentioned dark side in him. He also saw that it was completely under control. "I don't want your assurances out of friendship. I said I wanted your help as a Jedi. I can take the truth."

"And the truth was what I spoke," Luke insisted evenly. He leaned forward and placed his half-full and still steaming mug on the table, opposite Zak's, and then graced the younger man with a smile. "I know you. You may have changed a lot since the days of war against the Empire when we first met—you've grown more mature, cautious, selfless … wise. But even with those changes, your core being hasn't changed at all. Sometimes, I look at you and I worry about Jaina because I see the exuberant young risk taker that always used to somehow get involved with my father's and the Emperor's secret plans."

"Sometimes I think that's all Mister Solo still sees in me," Zak muttered.

"You are in a relationship with his only daughter. He respects you, and—yes—he is cautious of you." Luke said. "But; no, I don't believe your dark side will ever take over again. You're aware of it, and you grow stronger every day. If your dark side ego even still exists, it will realise soon enough that you gain strength as it gains strength, and it will therefore always be just that little bit weaker than you and unable to take over."

"And when I sleep, it leaves _him_ the opportunity to do just that."

"Which is why I'm convinced that when you reasserted control of your own body, you destroyed the Sith ego. Otherwise he would have taken advantage of just such an opportunity by now. It's been four years, and no sign."

Zak still didn't seem convinced.

"What about what I saw, and felt, earlier?" he asked. "I saw … something," he continued, reading the question on the elder Jedi's mind. "Some sort of apparition. It took the shape of a hooded and robed figure I couldn't discern the identity of. But it spoke to me—whispered almost directly into my mind that I would always carry _him_ with me, no matter how much I try to 'delude' myself that I am Jedi."

Luke thought about this. Until now, he'd been absolutely without doubt that they had seen the last of Darth Malonic, the self-proclaimed Sith personality that had fractured away from Zak's mind at some point between his and Jaina's abduction by Brakiss—a newly christened Sith himself—and his brutal torture and destruction of the man after their escape. It had taken quite a lot of experimental drug use in order to try and suppress the parts of Zak's brain that were responsible for hatred and anger enough that Zak was able to reassert control of his own mind. But Malonic's hold had been broken long enough for Zak to remember who he was, and use that to destroy the dark side fracture.

Now, it seemed as though Zak hadn't destroyed it at all, and that it was possible that Malonic had been biding his time.

Could it be? Perhaps it was something simpler. There had to be another explanation for the mysterious avatar Zak had seen. He couldn't rule out the possibility that there were outside forces hiding in Tipoca City, messing with Zak's mind and using his own memories and fears against him. But on the other side of that same coin …

Zak was ahead of him on that thought. "Or maybe," he started, "I'm losing it."

Maybe not. "Losing your mind? I doubt that very much."

"Do you have a better explanation?"

"Possibly.

"You are about to undergo a very controversial procedure, Zak," Luke continued. "Jaina has voiced her opinions _against_ it, and it is quite often you seek _her_ guidance on matters such as this. I myself have reservations about the fact that it is somewhat experimental. You are one of my star pupils. I haven't seen talent like yours and your sister's since Jacen and Jaina. I would not care to subject you to something harmful."

"Sounds like you're trying to talk me out of this," Zak said, eyebrow arched suspiciously. "I smell Jaina's hand in that."

"So quick to judge," Luke said, disappointed. "I am not trying to talk you out of this. But you have ten hours until your first treatment is scheduled, and that's not a lot of time to confirm that this is what you really want. You've had days since I first brought it up, but have you actually stopped to consider it, or have you been too busy meditating on other issues in your life, and trying to avoid conflict with Jaina?"

Zak's jaw was agape at the stunning prediction. Luke didn't even have to read it from his mind to know that it was all true. It was evident on his face.

"I thought as much," Luke said with a sigh.

"So …" Zak said slowly, comprehending. "What you're saying is that the apparition I saw was merely a manifestation of my own doubts that have been building up since what happened with _him_?"

"By extension, maybe that's exactly what I'm saying," Luke said with a dismissive wave. He reached forward and used the Force to return his cup of caf to his hand, where he brought it to his lips and took a long, satisfying draught from it. "But I merely meant that it could be a manifestation of your doubts about this procedure. But maybe your doubts go further back than that. Maybe your doubts _do_ stem from the incident with the fracture ego."

"So, what do you think I should do?"

"That," Luke started thoughtfully, "is entirely up to you. I can offer suggestions, but I cannot make your decisions for you. Only you can do that. Only you _should_ do that. I'll tell you what I _will_ do, however."

"Yes?"

"I'll go to this platform you mentioned and take a look at this mysterious ship for myself." He finished his caf and deposited the now empty cup down on the table. "See if it matches anything I've seen before, or what kind of sense I get from it. It might shed some light on things."

"That sounds good."

"Not tonight, however." Luke got to his feet, and waited for Zak to do the same. "You have much needed rest to see to, and so do I."

"Right." Zak nodded and, ignoring the rest of the caf in his cup, headed for the door with Luke trailing not too far behind him. "I … oh! Mara asked Jaina and I to find out the source of your lack of communication."

"When we return to the Praxeum, I'll tell her it's due to the storms. At least, that's what the Kaminoans have told me. Ion storm passed through the system, apparently, and it's stirred up some static interference in the atmosphere."

"Ah," Zak said softly. He keyed the door open and stepped through it. "Good night, Master Skywalker," he said, and then he darted down the hall.

Before Luke closed the door and turned off the lights, he sensed Zak reaching for the Force, and knew that he sought directions to the suite he and Jaina had been provided.

Tomorrow was going to be an interesting day.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

_**Piece of the Puzzle**_

Zak woke ten minutes earlier than he had set the alarm to wake him. Finding himself unable—and failing to see the point in trying—to get back to sleep, he kissed Jaina on the cheek, got out of bed and headed for the refresher. After a sanisteam, and a strong cup of caf from the caf dispenser in the kitchenette, he got dressed in plain, nondescript clothes and headed out.

He decided that since he was due to arrive at the lab chamber where his memory recovery procedure was going to take place minutes later anyway, he would head there early and get started early.

In fact, he was just about to enter the lab when Jaina caught up to him, fully dressed and none-too-pleased, it seemed, with him.

"You could have woken me as well," she said indignantly. Zak sighed with resignation.

"I woke early. I thought I'd let you sleep in, is all," he said plainly.

"And you thought, at the same time, that you would just come straight over here and get started on the memory recall _early_ so that I wouldn't have another opportunity to try and talk you out of it," she accused.

Zak resisted the urge to frown. She was, in fact, correct; though that didn't at all enter into things.

"Jaina, we can argue about this later. I would just like to get this first treatment over with while I'm still keen so that I know what the whole procedure is going to be like."

"You're wavering." It was a statement of fact.

"That's neither here nor there," Zak said dismissively. "I've already agreed to do this, and so that's precisely what I'm going to do."

"Zak …" Jaina reached for his hand, and for some reason that he wasn't able to fathom, brought it to rest under her blouse, just above her hip at the back.

Instantly, Zak found himself drawn back into the all-too-familiar sensation of recalling a memory …

* * *

They kissed with all the fire, all the passion that both of them could bring to the encounter. Zak was dressed in a black top tucked into equally black fatigues. His black gloves were on, and a cloak was draped over his shoulders, with the hood pulled back from his face. Jaina was dressed in blue on blue, with a white stripe going down the left and right sides of her fatigues, and had foregone her own cloak. He knew she had left it in the lower levels.

His eyes were closed now, but through the power of the Force, he could see her so clearly through his eyelids. It was a strange sensation, as though everything was muted and clear at the same time. It was like looking through glass that was neither clean nor dirty.

But the kiss …

While he meant every emotion he poured into it, every feeling and sensation that passed between himself and Jaina through their first expression of their feelings for one another, it was but a means to an end.

He knew Jacen had followed her.

He knew Jacen was waiting.

He knew Jacen was watching them both, with his lightsaber drawn, but not activated yet; expecting trouble from Zak.

He also knew why they were both there. Jaina had not come to _see_ him. Jaina had come to _sequester_ him. He could feel it, just barely hidden in her thoughts behind the passion burning within her. It was such a shame that he would have to break her heart, as well as his own.

He would have preferred to keep her around, perhaps take her on as a willing, and most certainly capable, apprentice to the dark side. He was strong enough now that he knew he had to do that; to keep the legacy of the Sith alive. But as much as he wanted it to be Jaina, as much as he would have given for it to be her, it wasn't to be so.

She was too old, for a start; too ingrained in the Jedi beliefs that she wouldn't just give up on them because he _asked_ her to. And he doubted he could exactly force her hand by killing those she loved most—her uncle and aunt, and her two brothers; any of them were accessible, and Mara and Luke had both proven themselves inadequate to stand against him.

If he remembered correctly, and he knew he did, Mara had been near death when he'd been chased off by the Wookiee and the shape-shifter.

And so, because of the lack of required criteria, Jaina had to be sacrificed. He had to immortalise the woman he cared for to pave his way to the Sith, and to anger the rest of the Skywalkers. He had to provoke them, so as to weaken them.

When she pulled away from the kiss, Jaina's eyes fluttered open and she looked up at him, smiling faintly as if she could not believe they had just kissed. Zak could believe it, but he had not wanted it to stop. Not so soon. He found himself despising that desire. It would make him weak. He opened his eyes also, looking down at her and cradling her cheek and chin gently in the palm of his hand.

"I never knew you felt so strongly," Jaina purred, closing her eyes again. Zak merely nodded and she looked back up at him. "Come back with me, Zak. Will you please? You haven't done anything terribly heinous yet. There's still hope of redemption for you. I know it."

"I …" He deliberately faltered, allowing her to think she was getting to him. He sensed that Jacen nearby didn't buy his hesitation one iota.

"Do it for me," Jaina whispered. "Do it for Tash."

He pretended to think about it, cocking his head to the side enough that he could see Jacen's hiding spot behind the rising stone pews from the corner of his eye. He nodded. That was all. Just a single nod to let Jaina think she had won.

Believing it fully, she pecked him on the cheek and then turned and started across the raised dais toward the steps leading to the central space in the Grand Audience Chamber. She moved slowly, so that Zak could easily catch her as she so expected him to.

What she didn't expect was an attack, and that was precisely what came.

Leaving his lightsaber hanging from his belt, Zak drew the Force heavily into both of his hands, bending it to his will and shaping it into an attack so vicious he would never have conceived of using it when he had been a weak _Jedi_. He flung both of his hands out, and brilliantly violet arcs of electricity leapt from his palms and fingertips and across at Jaina.

Sensing the attack at the last second, she started to turn, and the blast caught her to the lower-left area of her back, burning through the material and charring skin as it flung her sideways into the stone pews only a handful of steps away.

She hit with a hard _thud_ and screamed in agony as the electricity sizzled across her skin, burning away.

Zak would have kept up the attack, but he sensed the need to switch immediately to his lightsaber. The instant he plucked it from his belt, Jacen came around from behind the pews and at him with such speed he was no more than a featureless blur in the dark. A feral scream rent the air, filled with hatred directed at Zak.

He had his lightsaber on a split second before Jacen's was past where it hissed to life and the blades clashed, sending a brilliant array of sparks around them both and nearly blinding Zak.

He threw Jacen off him so hard he fell backwards. Expertly, however, the rash young man recovered from the dive and turned it into a backwards handspring. Zak could not miss the second lightsaber hanging from Jacen's belt, and he frowned. Surely, Jacen would not be able to coordinate two weapons against him.

He dashed forward, his lightsaber extended to impale, but Jacen dodged to the side and batted down at Zak's second blade, driving the tip into the stone of the dais. It hissed angrily as it punched through the material that was nothing to a lightsaber, and Zak quickly pulled it free before whirling and aiming a Force attack straight at Jacen as he jumped for him again.

Again, Jacen recovered. When he hit the stone, he switched his lightsaber off and rolled backwards twice before springing to his feet and flicking the lightsaber to life once more. Zak flipped forward, ignoring the hood that flipped up and over his head to throw his face into shadow.

Jacen hesitated when he looked upon him again, and Zak took the chance to dash forward and launch into a series of powerful strikes, forcing Jacen to dodge away from most of them and parry the ones he couldn't avoid. But parrying came at a cost, and threw him off-balance enough that he couldn't turn the parry around on Zak and start into his own sequence of strikes and feints.

Jacen darted to the left, away from Zak's blade, and when Zak turned to correct, he saw Jacen flying through the air at him. The hand enclosed around the hilt of his lightsaber pummelled Zak's jaw, causing his head to snap back and a spike of pain to shoot across his face and up into his brain. It hurt … a lot.

Jacen wasn't going to get away with that.

He pivoted on one foot, and sent the bridge of the other crashing into the side of Jacen's head, launching him across the chamber.

Once more, Jacen proved his prowess and hand-sprung to his feet on the top-most pew on the western side of the chamber.

While slowly walking towards that set of pews to catch up, he took advantage of the lull in action to check on Jaina. She was still slumped heavily against the eastern-most pews, groaning as she tried to block out her own pain, and failed.

Zak shut her out of his mind again, and took each pew toward Jacen one at a time, savouring the moment, and breathing in the fear coming from his former friend.

For a moment, Zak could sense the defeat in Jaina's twin, and at the same time the determination in Jacen's eyes dimmed but a little. But it flared back to life again, as the thought of his sister, wounded as she was and still trying to get back to her feet after the sneak attack Zak had launched upon her, crossed his mind. Instead, he jumped back off the pew, and grabbed the edge of the stone with the tips of his fingers, flinging himself high in the chamber to the ceiling above.

Zak spun quickly to track him with his eyes, and saw Jacen speed like a dart to the hard ceiling, right himself and thrust his feet flat against the stone to spring straight back down at the ground where Zak stood.

He jumped to the side, flicking his lightsaber off and rolling far from Jacen's landing. He heard a loud crack and thud behind him, and a light shockwave of Force energy slammed into him mid-roll and threw him out of control against the wall.

It took him longer than he planned to get back to his feet. Counting now; that was twice that Jacen had struck him and dealt him some measure of pain. He was going to have to think of something appropriately hurtful.

Perhaps Jaina would be of some use in that regard.

But when he turned to her, he saw her back on her feet, staring at him through eyes that expressed the hurt and betrayal within; eyes that were brimming with tears. She took one step toward him, and Zak started over to meet her, his lightsaber raised and one of the deadly crimson blades lit in anticipation. Jacen beat her to him, though, and his blade was manoeuvred into place with enough force to push Zak back a few steps to recover.

Jacen spun, and it was hard for Zak to miss his left hand darting to his belt, plucking the second lightsaber from it, and tossing it to Jaina mid-spin before he clasped his own lightsaber with both hands and battered toward Zak.

Jaina leapt high over them both, igniting the violet blade of her weapon simultaneously and slashing at Zak's back the instant her feet touched the stone behind him.

* * *

Zak returned to the present with a deep, gasping breath and his eyes blurred. He blinked several times to try and clear them, but all it seemed to do was make it worse. Also, his cheeks felt wet, cold.

Jaina reached out and wiped the tears from his face, but said not a word.

It took him another minute to reacclimatise himself to his surroundings and to the fact that what he had just remembered had happened four years ago. When he was sure of himself, he straightened and pulled his hand away from the ever-so-faint scar of his unprovoked attack on her.

He now realised why no one would tell him what had forced all three of the Solos to assault him so viciously. He had deserved it. He'd provoked the men by attacking Jaina without reason. No; he had had a reason—he'd done it _to_ provoke. Despicable!

"Zak!" Jaina admonished with a frown, as if she had heard his thought. He had to admit that she probably had, due to the bond they shared.

"How could you keep that from me?" he demanded, taking a step back from her. "All that time that I've been trying to remember, and no one would tell me what I'd done. Nothing I'd remembered before even _compared_ to that!"

"Because I knew you would hate yourself for it," Jaina hissed, keeping her voice low so that the pair of conversing grey-eyed Kaminoans that passed wouldn't pause to ask if there was a problem. "Or are you denying that you do?"

"How could I not?"

"Then deciding not to tell you was a good judgement call, as I see it. If you didn't remember it, then that was fine and we could go on and forget that it even happened. And if you did—you had the rest of the memory already and you know full well that that confrontation led directly to your redemption!"

"Redemption means nothing if the acts one commits are so heinous against those he loves."

"Redemption means nothing only if you let yourself believe that it doesn't," Jaina hissed stubbornly. A passing Kaminoan shot them a rueful glance, and picked up their pace to escape the vicinity.

Without responding to her argument, Zak spun on his heel and pressed the switch next to the door. A couple of seconds later, it _whooshed_ open, revealing Loru Fa. He responded to her greeting as friendly as he could with how furious he was feeling towards Jaina, and without turning back to say he would see her later, followed Loru Fa into the room and shut the door behind him.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

_**First Treatment**_

"So … I just lay down on the bench?" the young Jedi boy asked dubiously.

"Precisely, Mister Arranda." Sane Fa was considered by outsiders to be a stereotypical sibling. He wasn't, by point of fact.

Kaminoans did not really have siblings in the same way that humans or other near-humans did, since they were all in effect grown in laboratories rather than through a natural gestation. But he and Loru Fa had formed a close friendship over the years. Though it was only platonic, the two of them were closer than any Kaminoan had been with any other Kaminoan since the days of dry land.

Sane Fa was a scientist, and vainly considered the yellow of his eyes the brightest and most radiant amongst those of his caste. Clearly, there could have been no other set like his, and there would surely be none after he passed on. He heard the whispers, the rumours—none of them derogatory in any sense.

It was said that the unique quality of his eyes was a sign that his genetics were far advanced for someone of his caste.

Indeed, he had been responsible for many breakthroughs in cloning procedures during the Clone War, and had found improved methods of sustaining the clones' health without compromising the need for the rapid aging they had all been programmed with. But near the end of the war, Sane Fa had grown tired of it. He was pleased that his people were making millions of credits from the Republic for the clones that were supplied for the war efforts, but he could no longer take joy in sending so many of his creations off to be destroyed in a war that was not of Kamino's making and which didn't inherently affect them.

So, instead, he had moved to another field: studying the humanoid mind. Taun We's notes had been more than helpful in getting him started. She herself had taken it upon herself to study the psychology of the clones during the war, even to the point of forming a … friendship of sorts with the only clone that had not undergone the advanced aging process, the one that was said to have been created as a favour to the template: a son. Sane Fa had never met the boy, and doubted that he would ever get the chance. He was no longer interested in the clones. If, by chance, there were any left out there, they would not last long due to the rapid aging. And if the bounty hunter's son was still alive … well, Sane Fa didn't see any reason he would return to Kamino.

From Taun We's notes, Sane Fa had been able to expand further into the human psyche and unlock more and more mysteries as well as patent and develop more and more ways to unlock those mysteries, those secrets, those things so deep and dark that even the subject was not aware of the existence of it.

"And then what?" the Jedi asked, tearing Sane Fa from his thoughts.

He picked up the apparatus on the table. It was an oval disc, barely a human thumbnail thick and spanning the length of Sane Fa's longest digit. The unit was spotless white, with a silver line etched into the apex points and crossing back and forth like a giant crack in the surface connecting the two points.

Sane Fa turned and watched the Jedi lay down on the table, and then he approached with long, graceful steps. Within two, he was bench-side and looking down unblinkingly into the young human's face.

"I will place this device in the middle of your chest. It will monitor your bodily signals." He gestured toward the young man's coverings, and after an awkward moment, the young man unbuttoned it and opened it enough for Sane Fa to gently place the oval disk perfectly centre of the sternum.

The boy gasped. "Cold," he hissed. Sane Fa ignored the platitude and turned to the bench-side table to retrieve the next set of devices. "What are those?" the human asked.

Had Sane Fa not heard the genuine interest in the human's tone, he might have given the simplest explanation, or simply not bothered. But, it seemed that Mister Zak Arranda was keenly interested in every facet of the procedure. Perhaps it was what humans referred to as a nervous desire to acquire knowledge.

"These are also monitoring devices," Sane Fa spoke evenly, and Loru Fa sidled up to the other side of the bench and looked down at the young Jedi as well, smiling—though it was doubtful the human noticed it. "They monitor the signals and electrical impulses within your brain. They are a fairly common medical device, but these ones have been modified specifically to interact with those signals. When the signals and impulses associated with memory begin to stir, these devices will amplify the memory and bring it toward your conscious mind."

"Would that also bring out memories I already have?" the Jedi asked carefully.

"No," Sane Fa said, shaking his head. "They specifically interact with suppressed or distant memory. There would be no point to using it to recover memory you already possess."

"Except for interrogation."

Sane Fa was actually alarmed by the implication. "We have no need to interrogate anyone. Kaminoans are not in the habit of committing a crime, and the crimes committed by outsiders are typically handled by your own governments."

Carefully, Sane Fa pressed one device each to the young Jedi's temples, and then gently tapped them to bring them online. A blue light flared from beneath each casing to signify that they were active. He pressed a third one to the centre of the young man's forehead, but refrained from activating it just yet.

"What about that?" the Jedi asked, nodding to the holoscreen perched via a jointed durasteel arm on a bench near the wall.

Sane Fa dismissed the screen with wave and tuned back to the boy. "In the event you were going to be conscious for the procedure, or if you had allowed another from your company to view your memories. It has not been hooked up to the monitoring devices, so the supervising technicians and myself will _not_ be witnessing any of your memories."

"We respect the desire for individual privacy amongst our clients," Loru Fa clarified. Sane Fa nodded to her and she nodded back before gracing the young Jedi with another rare Kaminoan smile. "I must go and tend to … other matters," she said hesitantly.

Sane Fa almost cursed her aloud. She should be decisive with her speech. The Jedi were masters at reading the thoughts of others, and the last thing they needed was for any of them to discover the troubles they were having. It would not do for them to be sticking their proverbial noses where they were not welcomed, or where they did not belong.

Either the boy hadn't noticed Loru Fa's hesitancy or he had dismissed it, for he nodded.

"I assure you, Mister Arranda," she continued, "you are in very capable hands. I will return later to escort you to your quarters."

"Appreciated," the boy said with a grateful smile. "But if you have other matters to attend to, I'm sure I can find my way on my own."

Again, Sane Fa was alarmed, but did not show it. It also would not be wise for the younger Jedi to be wandering around on their own, lest they become lost and find themselves in places they ought not to be.

Loru Fa nodded again, both to the boy and to Sane Fa, and then left the lab.

After the doors sealed shut behind her, Sane Fa looked down at the diagnostic pad in his hand and commanded the device to analyse all the equipment and perform a last minute checklist for faults. In the meantime, he noticed that the young Jedi was wriggling slightly on the bench, trying to get into a comfortable position. It was … distracting, but Sane Fa refused to let the boy see that it affected him so.

The pad bleeped at him the all clear and he put handed it to a nearby aide who took it over to and deposited it on the bench against the wall.

"The equipment all checks out perfectly and we are ready to begin," Sane Fa said to the young Jedi. "Unless you have had a change of mind, of course."

The boy hesitated, frowning in thought as he, no doubt rapidly, considered something, and then he looked up and nodded. "I'm ready."

"Please," Sane Fa said, approaching and gesturing widely, "lay back. I apologise for the lack of comfort, but considering that you will not be conscious of it, there was no need to furbish it so."

"That's all right," the boy said. "I've slept on worse."

Sane Fa nodded. "Deral Nai, please administer the sedative to Mister Arranda."

The nearest of his colleagues—possessive of strange, amber eyes—approached them without a worse, and with an injector module in hand. The young Jedi visibly winced at the sight of the needle at the end of the module, but said not a word as Deral Nai pricked him with it and depressed the plunger, sending the sedative down through the thin tube and into the boy's system.

As the young man's eyes began to grow heavy over the next few seconds, Sane Fa leaned over him and gently tapped the third and final device on his head. "Pleasant memories, Mister Arranda," he said softly before standing straight again and turning away.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

_**Confrontation**_

Zak barely heard the sound of the scientist's "Pleasant memories" over the sound of screams in his head. He knew that the memory was starting to surface, and when he was completely absorbed by the effects of the sedative and the memory took form before his mind's eye, he was taken aback by the knowledge that it was _not_ what he had expected.

Tash was in front of him, curled in on herself on the ferrocrete-reinforced stone floor of the Jedi Praxeum back on Yavin IV. She was clad in her usual light colours with a light brown robe over it all. Her hair was a mess, frizzy in places, and her robe and slacks were smoking.

Seconds after the images took form, Zak found himself under assault by the thoughts and emotions he had felt at the time. Anger washed over him, betrayal—not quite hatred. He was _furious_ with Tash, though for what he could not yet remember. She had done something to anger him, that much was certain.

Looking around with his mind's eye, rather than the eyes of his memory self, Zak noticed that he was _not_ in the lower levels of the Praxeum, to which the Praxeum's populace had temporarily fled during his rampage against them. He was, in fact, on the great building's second habitat level, in the open space between his and Tash's bedrooms and in front of the dual lift tubes up to the Grand Audience Chamber.

Tash struggled to get up, and Zak felt a roar rip up from his throat as his hands shot forward, sending bright arcs of pure, high-voltage dark side power at her. She twitched and contorted violently under the assault, and the screams returned to his ears; screams he now knew were from her.

"WHAT DID I SAY?" he roared at her as the assault continued. He knew better than to try and fight his memory. Whether he wanted it to play out or not was beyond him when he was caught up in it this deeply. The electrical attack faded until it was little more than a frightening display of static arcs leaping up and down his arms from shoulders to fingertips and back again.

Tash coughed on the floor; a deep, hacking sound that seemed to be a great effort on her part. "Zak …" she said weakly. "Zak, please don't—"

But he did. His left hand flung out, fingers splayed as another electrical storm slammed into his sister, sending her skittering across the floor away from him. She screamed again, but he ignored her. She was even screaming his name now, as if it would stop him, as if he would show her mercy.

He lowered his hand, and lashed out with the other, sending another storm at his sister, briefer and weaker than the first. He stopped, and the electricity disappeared entirely.

A smile crept across Zak's lips as he watched his sister struggle vainly to sit up. But she couldn't even manage that. He strongly fought the urge to laugh at her feeble attempts, settling instead for maintaining the sinister grin.

He approached her slowly, revelling in her attempts to crawl away from him, to maintain the distance.

Zak felt sickened as the memory went on like that; sickened that he could have treated his sister like this. Why had she not told him? Krif the rules the rest of them had put into place—Tash would normally have tried to talk to him about something so bad.

"I told you I didn't want to talk," he found himself saying. "I _told_ you to leave me the kriffing hell alone! BUT DID YOU LISTEN TO ME?" He shot another bolt of electricity into his sister, ignoring the smell of burning flesh and only barely registering her scream.

Something sparked at the edge of his awareness, and he whirled around on the spot. There was no one behind him, but he could feel that someone was on their way. No doubt, they had felt the heavy use of dark side energies and were intent on investigating the source.

He turned back around with a derisive snort and took those final few steps toward Tash. She was curled up in an unmoving heap on the floor, smoking and unconscious. He didn't have time to waste on her, not when there was someone on the way.

He crouched down before her, reached out with his hand, and grabbed hold of her by the throat. Applying the pressure to cut off her oxygen took no effort, except to keep the delight from his face. He squeezed more, and more, feeling the life drain slowly from her.

And then suddenly he was slammed up against the wall away from her.

His breath left his lungs in a rush as the invisible power of the Force held him tight against the wall. He struggled, and the look of shock that crossed his face when the perpetrator rounded the corner was genuine.

Luke Skywalker.

He tried to speak to him, but found his throat pressed too tightly to say the words.

"Stay away from her you monster!" Skywalker said coldly, staring at him the whole time as he approached Tash. He leaned down to take her pulse, either ignoring or not noticing the panic that stabbed at Zak.

He was running out of air. He needed to breathe. He couldn't!

The pressure on his throat eased, but didn't disappear, and he gulped down ragged breathes of cool air as fast as he could.

"Luke …" he gasped. "What—?"

"What were you doing to her?" Luke snapped.

Zak thought about his options. While he was in the position he was in, there was really no point in telling him the truth. It wasn't like he could gloat about it, or continue, or even attack. Hell, he was concentrating so much on breathing that he couldn't muster the strength to use the Force to distract the elder Jedi.

Somehow, he doubted that any attempt to do so would actually work.

But what were his choices, given the circumstances? Luke had pretty much caught him in the act. There was no doubt in Zak's mind that Luke had felt the anger and the hatred swelling from him. How could he possibly deny that he had just been about to murder his own flesh and blood?

He tried anyway.

"I found … I found her," he stammered.

"And you decided to finish the job?" Skywalker said sceptically, cocking an eyebrow and nodding in his sister's direction.

"I was checking her pulse," Zak said as convincingly as his rasping voice would allow.

"For the first time in my life I can actually say to a friend that I don't believe them," Skywalker hissed.

"I was! I only just got out of the med bay!" That much was true … to a degree. He had left the med bay more than ten minutes ago. However, a little bit of programmers knowledge he had ripped from Brakiss' mind had allowed him an alibi. "Check with Geesev."

"Geesev would not have let you leave without calling for me first," Luke said plainly.

Well, of course, you poodoo-head! "He would have recorded the last time he saw me in the med bay; whenever he checked up on me."

The pressure against his throat disappeared, but he was still pinned against the wall. He struggled to get free again. "Let me go to her!"

"Zak, there was so much anger in you just now."

"HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF SOMEONE HAD DONE THIS TO YOUR SISTER?"

Skywalker cringed, either at the shouting or the thought of Leia suffering the same fate Zak had bestowed on Tash. Either way, the force holding him against the wall disappeared.

Zak stood, immobile, for a moment to be sure that it wasn't some kind of Jedi trick before he rushed to Tash's side and scooped her up in his arms. "We have to get her to the med bay!"

* * *

The memory swirled and dissolved, and Zak found himself in the dark recesses of his mind, reeling over what he had just seen.

He still found it so unbearably hard to believe that Tash had not come to him about this. How could she just let something like that slide? Did she have scars from the assault like Jaina?

Maybe she was as misguided as Jaina was in deliberately keeping certain things from him. To spare him from his own distaste for those actions, and for himself, was the most pitiful excuse ever. Honesty was supposed to be one of the stronger qualities in both of them. How could they have acted so contrarily?

Before he could dwell on it further, another memory surfaced …

* * *

Zak was happy. He found that odd. Looking at himself in the mirror, he saw the heavy black leathers and wools of his Jedi attire, and the dark circles under his yellow-and-bloodshot eyes that marked him as a Sith. He knew he was reliving another memory from his fracture. But if that was the case, why was he feeling so … elated?

Had someone died? He hoped not.

And then it hit him.

Rebekah Jordan was in the med bay, unconscious with lightsaber burns and electrical scarring along her left flank.

He had done it; he was happy to have done it.

He felt like vomiting.

If he recalled it right, and the background to the memory was starting to dawn on him now, it was only a week after the attack on Tash. She was still unconscious and hadn't regained consciousness since then, and had received heavy bacta treatment for the burns. She was expected to have no scarring. That meant that it was not more or less eight months after he had met Rebekah in the jungle. She was only just starting to trust people.

Obviously, that trust would now be shattered.

Apart from how his memory self felt, he was elated that he hadn't _killed_ her, as he had obviously intended.

Happy with his appearance, Zak drew his hood to obscure his features and left his room. The changes to his eyes were recent. He'd been able to get away with his path of terror at the Praxeum so far because no one had noticed any physical signs of his drawing on the dark side, and because so far he'd only been discovered at the scene of Tash's torture. There had been three since then, including Rebekah—the latest victim.

But now, he was going to have to be extremely careful. He hadn't slept properly in days. He kept having dreams about the attacks on the others, dreams where standing beside him was another … well, him. A good, honest, strong mirror of himself that mocked his every move and act, who hissed at his deeds as though they were only damaging to the person responsible.

He couldn't stand the intrusions. For that's the only thing they could be; intrusions of the conscience. He had no need for such a monster. He was having fun terrorising everyone and feigning effort to work out with the Solos who the real culprit was.

He knew, however, that eventually there would come a time when he would have to stop his fun. It was only temporary while he adjusted to the strength he found himself imbued with, a strength that grew more and more each passing day. Already, he considered himself beyond Skywalker's capabilities. Another week, maybe two, and he would be strong enough to butcher the older Jedi without fearing the outcome.

And to top of that lack of sleep, people were bound to notice sooner or later that his eyes were no longer the brown they were used to. He doubted he would be allowed to walk around with his hood up all the time to hide his features.

Just as he left the hangar on the floor level—having not paid much attention to his course until now—and stepped onto the empty courtyard, a familiar presence glowed in the Force nearby like a beacon.

He turned around and saw that it was two people that approached him, rather than just the one he had felt.

Jacen Solo had been a good friend of his before his capture by Darth Pravus. But Zak no longer had the luxury of friends. He only continued the façade because that was what was expected of him. There would eventually come a time when he would have to shed Jacen as well to continue down the dark side. Jacen was just too … _good_ to follow him.

And there was his aunt, Mara-Jade Skywalker. The wife of Luke Skywalker was actually more of a threat to him than Luke was. Where Luke had been raised as a farm boy on Tatooine, Mara-Jade had grown up in Imperial service, serving as one of the Emperor's Hands. She had been trained in more of the darker arts of the Force than Luke had during his brief and traitorous apprenticeship to the cloned Emperor, and she had been a highly skilled assassin even without aide of the Force. She would be a tough nut to crack—physically. Mentally, she was perhaps only a little less Jedi than her husband. She would definitely press any advantage, honourable or not, to kill Zak if he tried to kill her first.

Though she had more of a touch of the dark side in her than any other member of the Skywalker-Solo family, there was again no way she would ever follow that path. It was laughable that she would even follow _Zak_.

And yet, as both of them approached him, Zak noticed that neither was smiling. That and they each had a hand resting on their belts near their lightsabers.

What had possibly given him away?

"Hey, Zak," Jacen said evenly when they stopped a couple of meters away.

_Stang_! They were just out of reach of Zak's own lightsaber. They definitely suspected him of the recent bout of terror. Usually they were casual to a fault with him, getting in close enough that Zak could have run them through with a carefully concealed vibroblade, if he even had one.

"Hey," Zak said stiffly.

"Sorry, Zak," Mara started, "but I'm going to have to ask for your lightsaber."

"Um …" Zak hesitated convincingly. "Why?" He fumbled at his belt in a deliberately clumsy attempt to grab his lightsaber.

"Rebekah woke up a half hour ago," Jacen responded. Both of them stiffened visibly when Zak gripped his lightsaber and unhooked it from the hook on his belt. "She told Uncle Luke that you attacked her without provocation."

Zak swore to himself under his breath. He didn't think they had heard him, but he considered that they possibly had. He looked up at them fully, so that they could see his eyes, and Mara flicked her lightsaber to life the instant she saw the changes, Jacen lagging moments behind her, uncomprehending of what had set off his aunt.

"Kriffing _Sith_!" Mara shouted at him. She took a step back, and it struck Zak that she was smart for a Skywalker.

"Wha—look out!" Jacen shouted as Zak spun through the air at Mara with his lightsaber on and twirling.

He stabbed down at her, intent on driving the plasma blade straight down the crown of her skull. But Mara was faster and she rolled to the side with her lightsaber outstretched to avoid injury. Without missing a beat, Zak flicked the second blade of his lightsaber to life and slashed up at Jacen's head without turning to see what he was doing.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

_That night passed relatively uneventfully. Skywalker made the mistake of allowing me to remain present when Geesev tried to bring Tash around, and I used my newfound abilities to suppress her consciousness with no effort. None of them were aware of what I was doing, and they all naturally assumed that perhaps her injuries had been too great._

_ They'd given up after a second attempt, and I was free to leave under the false pretence of tracking down her attacker._

_ But now, days later, she was still in the infirmary. For the most part, I was pretty reassured about that. But there was a tiny, tiny flicker within me that raged, cried, whimpered at the thought that perhaps I'd damaged her too much. I ignored it without much effort. It was nothing to me now what became of her. She was but a hindrance to my ascension._

_ Three more were in the infirmary with her too, now. A couple of students I couldn't put a name to had had the misfortune of discovering me together during one of my fouler moods—I'd been unable to replicate a new ability I had stripped knowledge of from Darth Pravus's mind. I'd taken them both down with a storm of lightning that left them twitching and smoking on the stone floor, and fled the scene only moments before Jacen and Jaina Solo arrived. I then doubled back and came around behind them, under the façade of having detected the disturbance in the Force as well. We carried them to the infirmary at once, and then I left again to "track down the mystery Sith"._

_ The next day, Rebekah Jordan had come across me. However, I was in a rather placid mood at the time … perhaps a little too placid, for she sensed darkness upon my mind and questioned me about it. I'd often considered the possibility of taking her as an apprentice, when I was ready. She possessed quite a skill with the Force and with the blade. Though, by no means an expert at either yet, she had learned those skills while living alone in the jungle for an unknown number of years. I had to give her points for that. The Force was strong with her, and it could be nurtured until she became the ultimate tool of my destruction._

_ But I couldn't for the life of me think of a way to persuade her. She had grown so attached to the imagined friendship she had with me—for I felt nothing of the sort. And she was starting to become accustomed to the teachings of that insufferable Skywalker and his ilk._

_ Nevertheless, she was still raw and mostly untainted. I offered her the chance to join me. I offered her the chance for greatness, for power unlike anything the Jedi could show her. And how was I repaid for my generosity? By refusal. She must have sensed that I wouldn't let her leave my side unturned; for she drew her lightsaber at once and told me that I was to follow her to Skywalker._

_ She was now in the infirmary, unconscious, with lightsaber burns and electrical scaring along her left flank and down her left leg. It had been such a waste of talent. She might not survive. The bacta tanks had "inexplicably" been drained after I'd attacked Tash. They were going to have to wait until more supplies could be sent down from Lando Calrissian's station in orbit of the gas giant. But that could take a while, since I'd also smashed the communications array._

_ I checked myself briefly in the mirrpanel above the sink in the fresher. My eyes were just starting to take on that sickly taint of yellow that came with such heavy abuse of the dark side. Colour was slowly being leeched from my features, aside from the dark shadows under my eyes. I drew my hood to obscure my features in shadow and left the fresher._

_ As I walked, I reflected. So far, I'd been able to get away with my path of terror and destruction at the Jedi facility because no one had noticed any signs of my drawing on the dark side. The colour leeching from my skin and the bags beneath my eyes could have been attributed to stress at trying to find the "unknown" Sith. Also, I had not actually been witnessed committing any of the crimes by anyone other than the victims, and they were all unconscious, and unable to testify against me._

_ But now, I was going to have to be extremely careful. I hadn't slept well in days. I kept having dreams about the attacks on the others, dreams where standing beside me was another … well; me. A good, honest, strong mirror image of myself without the physical changes that mocked my every move and act, who hissed at my deeds as though they were only damaging to me and not to those I was hurting._

_ I couldn't stand the intrusions—for that was the only thing they could be; intrusions of the conscience I no longer listened to. I had no need for such a monster anymore. I was having too much fun terrorising everyone around me and feigning effort to work out with the Solos who the real culprit was._

_ I knew, however, that eventually there would come a time when I would have to stop my fun. It was only a temporary distraction while I adjusted to the new strength I found I was imbued with, a strength that grew more and more each passing day. Already, I was far beyond that pathetic joke, Darth Pravus. I could have been on par with, even superior to, Skywalker. Another week or two, and I would be guaranteed to possess strength enough to butcher the older Jedi without fear that he may overpower me, because he would not._

_ And on top of that lack of sleep, people were bound to notice sooner or later that my eyes were no longer the soft brown they were used to seeing. It would soon become suspicious that I had my hood up so often, and that I avoided eye contact wherever possible. And I wasn't yet strong enough to pull off a grand glamour effect to make people see me as they I had been before Pravus had taken Jaina and me from the moon._

_ Just as I left the hangar on the ground floor of the Praxeum—having not paid much attention to my course until now—and stepped into the empty courtyard outside, a familiar presence in the Force glowed like a nearby beacon. I turned around and saw that it was in fact two people that approached me from the lift western lift bank—I had come from the eastern._

_ Jacen Solo had been a good friend of mine before my capture by Darth Pravus. Though we had only known each other for a month before then, I'd genuinely considered him the closest thing to a best friend I'd had since Alderaan. But I no longer had the luxury of friends. I only continued the foolish façade because that was what was expected of me until the truth was discovered. It was only a matter of time. There would eventually come a time when I would have to shed Jacen as I had shed Tash and Rebekah to continue down the path of the dark side. Jacen was just too … _good_ to follow me._

_ And then there was his insufferable aunt, the traitor, Mara Skywalker. The wife of Luke Skywalker was actually more of a threat to me than Luke himself was. Where Luke had been raised as a farm boy on Tatooine, Mara had grown up in Imperial service. Where Luke had started his training under a war hero Jedi Knight of the Old Order, Mara had been trained in the ways of the dark side and served as one of the Emperor's Hands. Even when Luke Skywalker had pretended to capitulate to the cloned Emperor years ago, he had not learned nearly as much in the ways of the dark side as his wife had learned in nearly her entire life. And yet, even stripped of the Force, Mara Skywalker was still deadly. She had been a highly skilled assassin before becoming the Emperor's Hand._

_ She would be a tough nut to crack—physically. Mentally, she was perhaps only a little less Jedi than her husband. She would definitely press any advantage, honourable or not, to kill me if I tried to kill her first. But because of her past, I knew that she was more susceptible to emotional warfare. I could use her husband against her, by beating him senseless before her very eyes. It would bring out her anger, her rage. She would want to kill me and she would make mistakes._

_ Though she had more of a touch of the dark side in her than any other member of the Skywalker-Solo family, there was no way she would ever follow the path of the dark side again. Killing me would be justice in her eyes, would be a protective measure to keep me from hurting those she loved. She would be angry, but she wouldn't let that stay her hand. It was laughable that she would even follow _me_._

_ And yet, as both she and Jacen approached me, I noticed that neither of them was smiling in a way that would convey friendship, familiarity. They didn't look hostile either, though. Each of them had a hand resting on their belts, near their lightsabers._

_ I frowned. What could possibly have given me away?_

_ "Hey, Zak," Jacen said evenly when they stopped a couple of meters away from me._

Stang!_ They were just out of reach of my own lightsaber. There was no doubt that this cool distancing and demeanour meant that they suspected something of me. Usually, they were casual to a fault in my presence. At any of those opportune times, I could have slain them both and not bat an eye; only the thought of premature discovery had kept me from doing it._

_ "Hey," I said stiffly._

_ "Sorry, Zak," Mara started, "but I'm going to have to ask you for your lightsaber. Do you have it on you?"_

_ Of course I did. Surrounded by Jedi everywhere I turned, how could I go anywhere unarmed? Any one of them could have seen through my deceptions, much as Rebekah had, and attacked me without warning, much as she hadn't._

_ "Um …" I hesitated, trying to make it as convincing as I could. "Why?" I fumbled at my belt in a way I hoped looked to them like a clumsy attempt to grab my lightsaber._

_ "Rebekah woke up about a half hour ago," Jacen responded. Both of them stiffened visibly when I gripped my lightsaber and unhooked it from its place at my belt. I tossed it across the space to them casually, knowing that I could rip it out of their hands with the Force with as much effort as using it to cut down a tree._

_ Jacen caught the lightsaber and gripped it tightly in his left hand. "That's good news," I said with false cheer, but really my insides were roiling. "What did she have to say? Was she able to tell us who attacked her?"_

_ Jacen nodded. "She told Uncle Luke that _you_ attacked her," he said glumly. His fingers flexed around my lightsaber and I resisted the urge to send an invisible hammer-ball of the Force slamming into his wrist and rendering it useless. "She said that she sensed something dark in you, and when she confronted you with it, you tried to seduce her with promises of dark side powers."_

_ I swore under my breath. Her memory wasn't as faulty as I'd hoped it would be when I'd gone scrambling through her mind during her unconsciousness. She had an uncanny ability for self repair and recovery, it seemed. It only fuelled my desire to teach her, to train her, to guide her._

_ I didn't think that either Mara or Jacen had heard my cursing, but I considered that they probably had. I looked up from the ground so quickly that my hood flicked back to reveal my features fully to them. It wasn't intentional, but it was something that could not just be undone._

_ Mara's lightsaber hissed to life the instant she registered the changes she had seen in me. Jacen's lightsaber was a little slower, but it still flicked to life. He seemed a little less comprehending than his aunt, gazing more at her expression of disgust and pity than on my face and its new appearance._

_ "_He's_ the kriffing Sith!" Mara shouted, nodding in my direction once. She took a step back, and it struck me that perhaps there was some manner of intelligence in her after all._

_ "What—LOOK OUT!" Jacen screamed as I went spinning through the air at his aunt._

_ I reached them faster than they could see it coming, and I kicked out with my back leg to send Jacen flying into the wall away from me for a moment. Mara recoiled a step, and brought her lightsaber slashing around to take my head off at the shoulders. I ducked under the first swing, dodged left around the second that came up vertically. Something hard and cold and metallic slapped into my palm and I flicked my lightsaber to life without hesitating. I had the blade in place, ready to block Mara before she knew what she was planning._

_ When her lightsaber swung away from me, I jumped straight up and stabbed down at her, intent on driving the plasma blade straight down the grown of her skull. But Mara was faster, and she rolled to the side with her lightsaber outstretched to avoid injury._

_ Without missing a beat, I flicked the second blade of my lightsaber to life as I landed and slashed up behind me without looking to block the incoming strike from his weapon._


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter**

**14**

Zak was outside when Jaina found him later in the day. She noted that the heavy winds of the storm that had swept over Tipoca City in the past hour were carrying the rain in an easterly direction, leaving the area by the door leading to the landing pad safe from the wet of it. Though it could change at any moment, Zak had forgone his robe and was instead standing there casually in a pair of loose, black slacks and nothing else.

"Watching the storm?" Jaina asked him.

Zak whirled around to face her. For the briefest of moments, Jaina could have sworn that she was looking at someone else entirely. For just an instant, she thought that his hair looked too wild, his lips set too thin, his jaw more chiselled than rounded, his eyes lighter, and shadowed with sleeplessness. But when she blinked, it was all back to the way it should have been. It had to be her imagination.

He smiled. "Yeah," he said. His voice was a little strained to keep above the sound of the rain and the wind. He didn't even sound like he was suffering from the chill of the wind blasting across the city. "A chance to unwind a bit after … well; you know?" He circled a finger around the side of his head pointedly.

"How'd it go?" she asked.

Zak hesitated and turned to the storm again, closing his eyes. Jaina didn't like to see him like that. It looked like he was in pain, or brooding over whatever it was that he'd seen while recovering his memories.

Perhaps it was just that he was still angry with her.

"It was what it was," he said flippantly.

Jaina frowned. What the hell was that supposed to mean? She found herself wondering. She tried to reach him across the bond they shared in order to tell what he was feeling, and found herself unable to fully succeed. In fact, the link felt dulled to her; deadened somewhat. It was a sensation Jaina had attributed to times when Zak was asleep or otherwise unconscious.

The only other time the bond had felt that way to her had been when the Sith personality had asserted control of Zak. She'd been unable to reach for him, and the Sith had manipulated that to draw her out.

But Zak had long since reasserted his dominance over that Sith persona. In fact, it was more or less destroyed. Yes, there would always be traces of that darkness within him for the rest of his life, but it would not taint him again, would not rule him again.

"Is everything OK?" she asked, cautious, concerned.

"Sure. Why wouldn't it be?" Zak turned again and looked her dead in the eye. For some reason that Jaina couldn't explain, that one single look sent an immediate chill racing down through her spine and she found herself unable to look him in the eye for very long.

"Well; you just came out of the labs. You just had that first treatment," Jaina put forward. She approached him slowly and stopped just in front and to the side of him. He turned to the storm once more, waiting for her to continue. "I would have thought that whatever it was that you'd seen this time might have upset you."

Zak was brought to a stop at her words. Looking sidelong at him, and trying not to make it obvious that she was, Jaina noted a hint of confusion in his eyes; eyes that seemed just a shade lighter than they should have been. But then, knowing replaced the confusion and he managed a weak smile. "A little," he said quickly. "It's really just the same things I've been seeing already so far—the fight with Skywalker, his wife, your brothers."

Skywalker? Jaina thought to herself. His wife? Your brothers? The terminology confused her.

Zak and Luke had been friends in one form or another since long before Jaina and her brothers had even been conceived. She'd heard her uncle insist numerous times that Zak address him by name rather than by his Jedi title. Her aunt, Mara, though she had known the Arrandas much less than Luke had, had insisted on the same familiarity between them by association.

Jaina had only ever heard Zak refer to Luke by his surname under two circumstances: when following the title of "master" while requesting or stating something to him in an official capacity of a student under lecture, and—

His eyes _were_ too light in the brown spectrum; closer to a darkish kind of yellow. Thinking about that only made her skin crawl.

On instinct alone, she took a step away from him, resisting the urge to reach for the lightsaber that hung from her belt, just in case she was wrong.

"What's the matter, Jaina?" Zak asked her, looking confused once more. She noticed that he didn't even attempt to approach her. Normally, he would have done just that.

"Nothing," she said quickly. Zak frowned, as if he detected the not-quite lie. "It's really nothing. Just … for a second there …"

"I reminded you of the way I was when I was …" he finished for her, circling his finger around the side of his head again. She blinked. Had that been a direct quote from what she _had_ been thinking? It could have been. But if Zak had read it from her mind, why hadn't she felt the awareness across the bond? Moreover, why hadn't she felt the intrusion?

She checked the bond again, and noted that it was still muted, still felt like Zak was unconscious. She decided to have a word with the Kaminoan technicians involved with the procedure later about that. Possibly, it was nothing more than an unforseen abnormality of whatever he had just recently gone through. Perhaps she had grown too reliant on that bond in recent years to even consider being without it now that they were so involved with one another.

Jaina nodded in response to Zak's guess, and she attempted to smile to alleviate her concerns. She had to admit to herself that it worked … kind of. Though, she still could not quite get over the eyes. She knew better than to alert him to that. If she was wrong and just imagining things in the different lighting of this world, then it would only confuse or annoy him. If she was right, then it would anger him and endanger her own life. She just desperately hoped that she was wrong.

"I'm sorry." It sounded genuine. Jaina even found herself believing that it was. How could she doubt someone she loved so much? How could she doubt him when he spoke to her that softly?

"It's all right," she said softly. She recovered the step she'd taken away from him and affected the best smile she could manage. "I guess that I should have expected some residual effects. You've just spent the past few hours reliving some of the most horrible experiences of your life; it's only natural that some of the darkness would still be on your mind."

There was a small moment of hesitation, but the tightness of Zak's lips gave away the frustration and anxiety roiling within. He might not be angry with her anymore that she could sense, but he did still seem to be frustrated both with her and with his memories. At least, that was how she chose to interpret what she felt coming from him.

She laid a gentle hand against his bare arm and looked up into his eyes. "Let's go inside," she offered, giving his arm a gentle squeeze. "Maybe you can show me around the parts of the city Loru Fa showed you yesterday."

"Later," Zak said, and returned his gaze to the empty landing platform. "I have a lot of thinking to do."

Jaina took the remark as it was intended—a dismissal. She nodded, brought his hand up to her face and kissed the palm once, twice, and then released it. "That's fine," she said. "I can wait for the tour. I might go and see Uncle Luke for a little while; find out what he's been up to for the day. I'll see you inside soon?"

Zak didn't reply. His eyes were closed now and he seemed to be listening for something. But whatever it was, Jaina couldn't detect it herself. The only sounds she could hear were the pounding of the rain, the howling of the wind, the rolling of the thunder. They worked in a sort of harmonic unison.

Perhaps that was what Zak listened to. Perhaps he was just finding some measure of calm in the storm that was passing over the city.

Jaina felt a tiny stab of envy at the presumption. There was a time when the only calm he could find was in her company. She wondered when that had changed.

"OK," she said softly. Then she left his side.

* * *

"I just don't see what you're getting at, Jaina," Luke said over a cup of caf an hour later.

As she had told Zak she would, Jaina had gone straight to her uncle. She hadn't however, told him that she would be talking about him. But having done so hadn't seemed to do her any favours. Her uncle didn't seem to realise that she had sensed something very wrong in Zak.

Had Luke even seen Zak since the first procedure? How could he know that there was nothing wrong if he hadn't? Was he basing it on faith in Zak that, presently, was shaken in Jaina? Or was it something more? Had he felt something in Zak that contradicted Jaina's statements and made her doubt what she had seen?

It was entirely possibly. After all, he _had_ been reliving some of the worst times in his recent years. That was bound to bring about some dark urges and thoughts and mannerisms that he would have to fight to control once more.

She sighed and ran a hand over her face, as if it could wipe away her worries and doubts for the man she loved. "I don't know. You could be right, I guess," she said after a moment and a sip of caf. "He just didn't seem … Zak-like," she added, screwing up her nose.

"It sounds to me like it might have just been a side-effect of the memory retrieval," Luke said with a shrug. He sipped against from his caf and then set it down on the table between them. "We can't really expect this to not have some kind of effect on him. He repressed those memories for a reason, Jaina. Part of him—not the Sith, part of _Zak_—refused to accept some of the things the Sith entity within forced upon him. Would you want to remember having attacked him, if your positions were reversed? Would you have wanted to remember attacking Jacen and putting him in the infirmary?"

Yes, she thought to herself irrationally. Then she actually took a moment to consider it. Would she? There were ups and downs to knowing.

On the one hand; if she had been in Zak's place, she wouldn't have wanted to remember hurting him or Jacen, or Tash, or Luke, or Mara. Knowing what she'd have done would have driven her into a pit of despair so deep she wasn't sure she could ever dig her way out of it.

But on the other hand; wouldn't knowing make it easier to apologise to those that she had hurt? Wouldn't it be better than walking around with people shooting her furtive, distrustful, sometimes scathing looks without knowing what she had done to deserve it?

"I don't know." Her caf was getting cold, but it was still in her hands, untouched.

"Exactly," Luke said. "We have to assume that Zak is debating the issue in his own mind and coming to his own conclusions." He uncrossed his legs and then recrossed them the other way and touched a thoughtful finger to the cleft of his chin. I'm more interested, presently, in what you say about that bond of yours. Has there ever been an instance when he's felt muted like this before?"

"Only when Zak's been sleeping or rendered otherwise unconscious," Jaina replied. "That's weird in and of itself, isn't it? That it feels that way now, I mean." Just to be sure, she tested it once more and found it unchanged.

Luke shrugged. "I can't claim to be an expert on that. The bond I share with your aunt is one of understanding and love. We don't have nearly the level of psychic connection that you and Zak formed with Brakiss was holding you. In fact, I can't even account for it. I've been going through the archives since you first reported it to me, and I haven't been able to find any records of any Jedi in history ever experiencing the same phenomenon. However …"

"However," Jaina finished for him, "the Jedi archives are massive, and largely incomplete."

"Precisely." He tapped his chin several times in thought and then shrugged again. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if it has happened before, and that all record of it was lost either when the Sith sacked Coruscant millennia ago, or when Palpatine tried to erase the Old Order."

"Kriffing bishwag!" Jaina muttered without thinking.

"Language, young lady."

She cringed from the rebuke, but didn't rescind it. She considered herself in the right. The Sith had done terrible things over the ages in their quest for power, but despite what current Sith like Alitha and Brakiss did in the years since, it was widely viewed by the Jedi that Darth Sidious—more commonly known as Emperor Palpatine—had been the worst of them all. The only Sith in history to completely decimate the Jedi Order and the Republic and install himself as the sole ruler of a galaxy-wide Empire, he had committed countless atrocities to ensure his ascension, and more to retain his position. That he had not only tried to destroy the Order, but to _erase_ it was just one more tally to his name.

"There's still a small chance that there's something in the archives," Luke said encouragingly. "How did you describe the bond as feeling to you lately?"

"Muted. If it was a living thing I would say it's asleep. I can see the occasional flash of images if I concentrate. They could be memories, bleeding across. Or they could be dreams."

"Have you often seen into his dreams while he's been asleep?"

"If I concentrate enough," she admitted. "But usually that's more than flashes. When I concentrate that much I get clear images, full streams. It's like a live feed."

"That's very peculiar indeed." Luke scrubbed the stubble on his cheek and then lowered his hand to his lap once more. "Have you discussed it with the lab techs to see what they have to say about it? As I mentioned, it could just be an unforeseen side effect. You'd want to at least rule that out before you go investigating it any further."

"I was going to see that chief tech in charge of the procedure later. Uh … Sane Fa, I think his name is?"

"Correct. I suggest you go to the Prime Minister first to organise that."

"I might." She downed the whole mug of cooled caf and set the mug back down on the table before pushing herself up from the seat and rolling her shoulders to ease the tension that had started to bunch. "I'm sorry if I seem to be overreacting, Uncle Luke," she said mutedly.

"Oh, heavens, Jaina! You're concerned for him. That's nothing to be apologising for," Luke assured her. "I think, though, that if this issue is bothering you so much, I might look into it as well. That also depends on how your meeting with Sane Fa goes. I promised Zak that I would take a look at something he found yesterday, but I haven't yet gotten around to that. Perhaps that should be my first task. It might offer clues as to what's wrong."

Jaina was on her way out when he said that, but at her uncle's words, she stopped and spun around so fast it dizzied her. "What? What did he find? He never mentioned anything about this to me," she said, frowning in displeasure.

Luke's brows drew together in something akin to sympathy before he replied. "He went on that tour with Loru Fa yesterday, if you recall, shortly after you arrived here and met the Prime Minister."

"Yes."

"Well, he was able to manipulate Loru Fa's mind just enough to leave a suggestion that they check out one of the landing platforms." Jaina's uncle finished the last of his own caf and then took both mugs to the sink cleaner and set them inside. Then he returned to where Jaina was standing.

"He mind-tricked a Kaminoan?" Jaina could scarcely believe it. There weren't many _senior_ Jedi that could pull something like that off, and fewer that would even attempt it. "That's … unlikely."

"Nevertheless, he succeeded. She led him to the platform in question and he went out to investigate it briefly. He discovered what he believed to be a transport vessel berthed on the pad, equipped with an active cloaking device. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn't bother with such a thing. Many people do value their privacy."

"Granted."

"But," Luke continued, as if Jaina hadn't spoken, "Zak claimed that he witnessed something … dark. On his way back into the dome, he saw some sort of shade that gave off a strong dark side aura and offered some vague threats about him."

Jaina's teeth clacked loudly as she ground them together at those words. How very like Zak to keep something like that from her. He might even consider it some sort of equalising after what he had just learned from her. How _very_ like Zak.

"Jaina …" Luke warned, sensing her thoughts.

"How could he keep this from me?" she demanded. "I—who he claims to love. I—who would do anything to see him safe. He knows that." She spun and went for the door again, keying the release switch. She stepped through it and then turned to face her uncle once more, glowering. "Thank you for informing me of this. I must have words with Zak. Good evening to you, Uncle."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter**

**15**

Prime Minister Koa Ne was alone in his official chambers, watching security holos of the day and ascertaining if there were going to be any problems from Jedi Skywalker or his lesser. So far, the elder Jedi had been nothing but gracious to his hosts for allowing him to stay on. He hadn't betrayed their hospitality by breaching any restricted areas.

Koa Ne was grateful for that; so much hung on the actions of the Jedi during their stay here that they were as yet unaware of. But at the same time, he was a little disappointed that Skywalker, in all his wisdom and considering his reputation, had not displayed some of that Jedi intuition that something might be amiss.

Nevertheless, the Prime Minister knew better than to broadcast his thoughts too loudly. He had long ago mastered being able to cloud his mind in the presence of those that could use that mystical Force. He had not come to his position as leader of his people by being foolish and taking unnecessary risks.

The other two Jedi—the younger ones—were proving to be more troublesome, he feared. They hadn't actually breached any of the restricted areas themselves as yet, but they had both been voicing far too much curiosity in their own company. The patient—this Zak Arranda boy—had even somehow confounded the Prime Minister's aide, Loru Fa, and somehow managed to get her to take him to the landing platform that held the ship of Kamino's other guest.

It was such a dangerous move that Koa Ne had almost been to the point of true panic at the reaction he might receive from that guest when he discovered the intrusion onto his privacy. True to expectations, the cowled man who always stuck to the shadows was disturbed, even angered by the intrusion. But he had not taken it out on his hosts … not this time.

The ship was likely moved now to another platform, so as to deter discovery by the other Jedi. The young Zak Arranda had reported it to Skywalker, but thus far Skywalker had not deigned to investigate it for himself. It seemed that he was perfectly content to accept things as they were without the need to add any hanger or mystery to them. But that in itself was anathema to the Skywalker legacy, Koa Ne knew. History had shown that the Skywalkers were suspicious by nature—or, at the very least, more intuitive than most.

Two of Koa Ne's guests were from the Skywalker lineage. That spelled danger. And this Zak Arranda child had so far displayed great skill on his own account in fooling Loru Fa the way he had, and having appeared to do so without any great effort. It was troubling indeed.

So when Koa Ne found a security holo feed from a few hours ago from one of the platforms, he became naturally disturbed by what he saw, became suspicious of the potential implications. He brought it up on the main screen and watched it keenly. He could not bring himself to question his guest's purpose on his world, nor his interest in the Skywalkers and, in particular, the Arranda boy. And yet, he had no choice but to facilitate that interest, lest it cost him more than his own life.

He blinked as he watched the holo through to its end, when the female Jedi, Jaina Solo, ducked back into the building, leaving the other standing out in the rain and the cold and the wind in nothing but a pair of long pants.

He shut down the holo at once and deleted it.

Then he decided to put his own designs into motion.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter**

**16**

_Meditating was becoming more and more a part of me now. I revelled in the power it brought to me, and, at the same time, I reflected on how I had bastardised the practice from the Jedi approached._

_ They were all nothing to me now. All hiding. All vermin—an infestation of the building that I had to purge before I could purify it for my own purposes. But I could not yet get to them. I had tried … oh yes, I had tried. But they had locked out all of the access shafts to the underground levels, hiding down there in the hopes of waiting out the storm raging overhead._

_ They couldn't even begin to comprehend my designs._

_ It made me laugh to think of the great and mighty Luke Skywalker; alone in the dark, so alone. Tending to the bruises and gashes I had wrought on his wife like she was nothing more than a plaything._

_ And, in fact, she was nothing more than that to me now. Despite my fears of her strength and her abilities being a challenge for my power, she had proven how weak and incompetent she was in comparison to me and my awesome power. She, like the rest, was nothing before the might of the Sith._

_ "Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken."_

_ Because any true foe would seek me out._

_ "Peace is a lie, there is only passion."_

_ Because the only options they would accept would be to remove me from the planet altogether, remove me from existence altogether, or remove altogether what they considered to be a taint upon my mind._

_ "Through passion, I gain strength."_

_ Because the Jedi were so predictable, I knew what path they would take. They would try to "save" me by removing the taint. They would choose the path of redemption, thinking that was what I really wanted._

_ "Through strength, I gain power."_

_ But who would be the one they sent to attempt such a feat?_

_ "Through power, I gain victory."_

_ Would it be Skywalker himself? I could imagine that. Though he would preach that he was only doing it for me, I could almost taste the revenge that would cloud his thoughts for what I had done to his wife. If I taunted him enough, would he break, like he had with his father? Would rage overcome good sense and cause him to lose control over his emotions?_

_ My, that _would_ be a sweet notion, wouldn't it?_

_ "Through victory, my chains are broken."_

_ I opened my eyes at the sound of footsteps approaching me from the south. I couldn't feel the presence of anyone nearby, but that didn't actually mean anything. I had recently learned the basics of masking my presence from Skywalker and his wife. Jacen Solo had been much better at it than I, but I knew that now I would surpass him in even that regard. It was child's play._

_ It had to be Skywalker. His wife wouldn't have been strong enough to challenge me, much less mask herself to try and catch me off-guard. And she wouldn't have allowed her footsteps to be so loud besides. She'd been a high skilled assassin for Emperor Palpatine in the days of the Empire, and one did not acquire her reputation without mastering the art of stealth._

_ Fleetingly, I considered Jacen as a likely candidate for my unexpected visitor. But he, too, knew quite a bit about stealthy approaches. And on top of that, I doubted that Skywalker would send him alone. Whoever I heard coming was definitely alone._

_ I got to my feet lazily and looked around. I couldn't see anyone, either, and yet the footsteps were close enough now that I should have done. There was nothing to hide behind so close to me, and the area was well lighted._

_ Could it be that one of them had learned to walk shadows?_

_ No. That was too dark side for Skywalker to teach these children._

_ "Show yourself!" he hissed to the darkness. There was, of course, no reply. And so I whipped out my lightsaber and slashed a full circle around myself at waist-height just to be sure. As I expected, I hit nothing. Frowning, I arced again in the opposite direction. "Show yourself!" I repeated when, again, I hit nothing._

_ "The dark side, I sense in you," said a throaty, high, ethereal voice from the darkness._

_ A faint glow from the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I turned to see what it was. But what I saw made no sense at first, and I backed away from the creature, lightsaber in hand._

_ "A long time, it has been," the small creature said to me. "Far, you have come. Proud of you, I was, until now."_

_ "You're _dead_!" I hissed through gritted teeth. In truth, it had occurred to me after a few seconds of shock that what I was seeing was no more than a projection of the spirit of a Jedi I had once known whom Luke had told me had died since. But besides the obvious foreknowledge, it was evident that all I saw was a Force projected ghost by the faint glow emanating from the little creature, and the fact that I could more or less see through him._

_ Despite that, Yoda looked younger than he had been when I had met him on Dagobah all those years ago. Or, well, not so much younger but stronger, less frail, more alive—despite being obviously dead._

_ "Leave me be, shade!" I snapped. I shut my lightsaber off and hung it back in its place on my belt._

_ "Do that, I cannot. Call to me, you did. Asking for help, you are." The impish creature limped towards me, leaning on his cane; though, it seemed his image relied on it less to support him than the living Yoda Zak had known had._

_ "I did no such thing," I said waspishly. "I would sooner plunge into the molten pits of Mustafar than call for help from a Jedi, let alone one that's been dead for decades."_

_ "Be that as it may," Yoda's spirit replied. He sat himself down on the stone directly in front of me, laying his cane across his lap and clasping each end of it. His long, pointed ears twitched, and I forced myself to look into those large, brown eyes to defy any notions he had of my redemption. "Hear yourself, you must."_

_ And suddenly, there was another voice echoing off the walls back at me. It was my own, and yet it wasn't. It lacked the hardness, the darkness. It was soft and hollow, as if I was screaming from behind an insulated door. And the little creature was right. The words were a plea for help._

_ "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" Though soft, I could tell from the tone that whoever was speaking it was in fact screaming the words. "GET OUT! HELP! SOMEBODY, HELP! GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!"_

_ "So, you see," Yoda started, opening his eyes and looking up at me again, "call for me, you did. And help you, I must. For this path, meant for you, it was not."_

_ "What do you know of what was meant for me, shade?" I said scathingly. The voice had faded into nothingness once more, and I breathed a sigh of relief._

_ "Much wisdom to share with the living, the dead possess. Become one with the Force, I have." Yoda's spirit ears flicked again and his brow tightened when he looked up at me. "Meant for you, this darkness was not."_

_ "_I_ decide what is meant for me!" I snarled. "Not the Force. The Force obeys, it does not dictate. It will do as commanded, not issue the commands. So do not presume to me that it will dictate how I choose to live my life from this point forward."_

_ "A time, there was, when felt differently, Zak Arranda did," the imp said. "When he first came to this place."_

_ "I am no longer that child. I am a Sith in my own right, and I will destroy any who presume to tell me differently." I turned my back on him and began to walk away._

_ But Yoda chuckled. He actually had the audacity to laugh at me for my outburst. Now, I wasn't just going to let that stand. My temper got the best of me, and I whirled around and threw a wave of the force at him so powerfully that it would have been enough to turn a Wookiee into pulp against the wall. But against the ghost of a dead Jedi, it did nothing. All I got for my efforts was a spray of stone and ferrocrete reinforce as my blast punched a nice crater into the wall instead._

_ Yoda laughed again, and I gritted my teeth to keep my temper in check, reminded that I could do nothing to him. "Kill one who is already dead? Such a feat, I would like to witness, hmm? Do that, how would you? Share with me, you will."_

_ "BE GONE FROM ME!" I roared._

_ But the little creature only closed his ghostly eyes and looked down into his lap, his brow knitted into a high arch. It almost looked like a child who had been scolded by his parents for having sweets against their will. Guilt and sadness, I knew those emotions to be. Good. I didn't care for his presence. Perhaps he would leave me._

_ As if hearing my thoughts, the little ghost looked up at me and nodded. "But alone, you shall not be. With you, I am. Others, too. One of them, I send to you, perhaps, hmm? Like that, you would not. But, I sense, the other part of you, like it very much, he would. Yes." He pushed himself back to his little feet and smiled a small smile at me. "Yes. Send them, I will. Help you, we will. Let you take this dark path, I cannot. Let you destroy yourself, I _will_ not. Too much death, I have seen. Too much destruction, I have witnessed. No more. Yes. No more."_

_ The little creature chuckled again and then faded from sight, glow and all._

_ Alone once more, I turned from the spot where the spirit had been standing. I wanted nothing to do with such delusions of fancy. I had decided that the appearance of Yoda was exactly that—a delusion brought on by the tiny part of me that remained true to his friendships with the Solos and Skywalker. It made me hate that part of me all the more, made me wish I could just reach in and pull it from myself to throw thrashing to the floor and watch it write and screech its denials._

_ It had to accept that I was not going to heed its silent screams. I was Sith now; I was finally on the right path, sickened by the memory of believing that the Jedi was the course I should take._

_ Memories surfaced, unbidden and bitter. Vader; formidable in his full-body life-support system. Black on black on black. Breathing heavy as he looked down at me—I was shorter then. Though I would not see the Sith's eyes behind the helmet, I could feel the cold stare, full of hatred and malice and even a little grudging respect._

_ I shook the thought from my mind and set myself to distraction by commanding the Force to blow great chunks out of the stone pews and walls. My anger flowed through me, hot and delicious. I was actively fighting the urge to dash down to the hideout of the Jedi to end them all; it would do me no good at this point._

_ Satisfied that I was through with my wanton act of vandalism, I switched my lightsaber back to life and crouched into the opening stand of __teräs käsi__fighting style. I spent the next few hours going through careful motions, practicing long and hard at the aggressive movements and the offensive motions of Vapaad and perfecting the fluid slashes and flawless parries of Soresu._


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter**

**17**

The rain had let up some by the time Luke Skywalker arrived on the platform. Though still coming down hard, it was hardly comparable it to the torrents that had beat down on Tipoca City for the past couple of days. As though, somehow, a sign of something to come. Luke didn't dismiss the idea outright. From his experience, he knew how important seemingly insignificant things could be as portents to future events.

The door opened at his approach, and remained open while he stood beneath the archway, gazing out at the landing platform.

Only last night, had he promised to investigate the suspicious, cloaked ship here. Only last night had Zak done the same thing; he had apparently been beset by some sort of dark side apparition. Luke wasn't too sure of the nature of that apparition, nor of its intent. But he was sure that it was something that required his attention. To leave it alone was to invite disaster of it was later learned it was important.

Luke valued his friendship with Zak. It was one of the longest ones he still enjoyed—though most of that time, Zak had spent in stasis. His sister too. And even back when they had been no more than children running around the galaxy foiling the Emperor's plots—often by mistake—he had never known them to make anything up for attention, nor lie for a joke. That they had only grown as people in the years since only made them more trustworthy in Luke's eyes.

But that was neither here nor there. Luke was only a little confused that what he was expecting to see was indeed not present. He was using the Force to enhance his vision, much as Zak had unwittingly done on his approach to the city, and yet there was no sign of the ship that he claimed had rested on this platform as near as last night. He could see nothing but the rain, the soaked durasteel, the occasional spray of salt water kicked up from the swells below. An aiwah dived down towards the ocean's surface a few kilometres away.

But what Luke did find was a feeling of unease. Something about this place felt dark to him. Something about it screamed at him for his presumption to challenge it. It was a horrid sense, one that, powerful as he was, he was able to bear without any great stress. And yet …

And yet it felt familiar somehow. It was like a darkness he had sensed before, been in proximity to before. And he knew at once where he had come across it.

Yavin 4.

The feeling was much as Zak had postulated: a dark side of himself. But Luke couldn't bring himself to believe it. He couldn't bring himself to trust it. He couldn't. Not after all they'd done to ensure that that dark side of Zak had been destroyed, defeated, obliterated. Not after all that Zak had been though ever since, to earn the trust and respect of his peers, despite the fact that they would never forget what had transpired.

And yet, there was something else about it. It felt like Zak's Sith manifestation, and yet it did not. There was something not quite familiar about it. Like it was trying to be, but it wasn't. Or like it was, and yet it was trying not to be.

He clapped a hand to the side of his head and shook it. Best not to over-think it, old man, he told himself.

Try as he might, Luke was unable to identify the source of the presence he felt, and that made him curious. In a normal person, irritation might have been the expected response to that kind of situation, but curiosity was at the very core of Luke's being.

Curiosity was what had led him to Obi-Wan Kenobi, led him to being trained by that wizened old Jedi. Curiosity had led him to Dagobah to a meeting with the old Jedi Master Yoda for further training after Kenobi's death. Curiosity had led him to question Obi-Wan's assertions that Darth Vader had killed his father; to discover the truth that Vader _was_ his father; to discover that Leia was his sister.

Curiosity had, in part, been the reason Luke had risked charging into Cloud City at Bespin to rescue his friends even though he had known that it was most certainly a trap. And it had, in part, led him to his confrontation with Emperor Palpatine when he had wanted to discover if there was anything of his father left inside Vader's life-support suit.

So to come across this strange, dark presence now that had so obviously rattled Zak, Luke found himself quite curious indeed.

He pulled his comlink from his belt and flicked on the transceiver. "Artoo; you there, buddy?"

A slightly distorted, high-pitched warble assured him that the astromech droid was indeed there. "Could you do me a favour? Check the sensors on my ship and the _Silent Hunter_. I want to know if any ships have departed or arrived in the past twenty-four hours."

Artoo's response was short, crisp, and clearly irritable. He obviously considered the task a waste of time.

"I spoke with Zak last night," Luke started, as if he needed to explain himself, "and he was quite rattled by something on platform nine. I'm here now and even I'm getting the sense of something dark here. I can't quite … explain the cause. I was just hoping that maybe the sensors had detected a recent departure."

There was no immediate response as R2-D2 took in the information. "It might help," he added, knowing how that would affect the astromech's decision.

An affirmative was whistled across the line and Luke smiled. "Thanks, little buddy," he said. "I'll personally give you an oil scrub when we get back home as compensation for all your hard work. How's that sound?" Yet another affirmative sound across the link, followed by some enthusiastic warbling.

He shut down the transmission and clipped the comlink back to its place on his belt.

"Indeed odd," he muttered to himself as he looked around the platform once more.

He extended his senses one last time, hoping to catch something that might give away the source of his unease. Coming up with nothing still, he decided that he had wasted enough time, and turned back to the dome of the main structure.

A gust of wind caught in his cloak as he made his way back; it billowed around him freely, but he paid it no mind. A gust of wind was nothing. In fact, he half hoped that with it would come the scent of a ship's recent exhaust activity, or someone hiding on the edge of the platform, using the Force to conceal their presence.

But it was, in many ways, a silly thing to hope for. Grasping at straws—that's all it was; just Luke Skywalker, Grand Master of the Jedi Order, grasping at straws to prove the hypothesis of a friend.

Or to disprove it.

He entered the building and shook his hair free of raindrops. They splattered against the walls with barely audible _splat_s.

Deep in thought, he made his way to his own quarters.

* * *

Jaina and Zak came to see him later. They didn't come together, which in itself was odd; Jaina had arrived nearly ten minutes earlier than Zak. It was almost as if it was a planned visit, and Zak had been told about it too late to ensure he'd be there on time.

Just the thought made Luke sigh inwardly, exasperated with his niece's tenacity. Her apparent insistence that there was something wrong with Zak was, at best, unfounded, and at worst, unhealthy. Though, she was more tactful than to just accuse him of it.

It appeared to the wizened Jedi as though Jaina was trying to surreptitiously enlist his aid in determining the truth.

Under normal circumstances, Luke might have decline and told Jaina under no uncertain terms that it was her responsibility as Zak's partner to discover for herself whether anything was truly wrong with, or different about, Zak. But after the presence he had felt on the landing platform earlier in the day, he wasn't likely to dismiss it so easily.

In fact, he was more than willing to prove that Zak was entirely himself, so as to disprove his fears that the presence he had felt had been Zak's. He was not at all cheered by the thought that the Sith persona that had taken him over years might have returned. He was not at all confident in his ability to defeat such a foe again, knowing that all of the strength Zak had acquired since their last battle would be usurped by the Sith persona, and augmented by its own innate ability.

Luke considered, quite honestly, that he might not survive such an encounter.

"Jaina …" Luke started when Zak had seated himself on comfortable lounging chair beside her. "Zak. What can I do for you both?"

Luke watched his young friend shoot a hard look sideways at Jaina before his niece spoke up.

"Just wanted to talk," Jaina said, smiling. "I figured that Zak might want to talk about some of his experiences so far since we've been here. Or, in lieu of that, I personally wouldn't mind hearing more about Kamino's history."

Luke stopped himself from replying right away. What had she said? _"I figured that Zak might want to talk …"_ Why would she have to guess at such a thing? With their bond as strong as it was, even if Zak had been closing himself off to her mind so as to not give anything away, she would still have _known_ if he wanted to talk or not.

He looked back at Zak, who was now looking defiantly at the floor. It was an expression that wasn't a stranger to Zak's features, and yet, there was a hardness about it that Luke couldn't fathom. If he had to guess, the Jedi Master would have said that Zak had been taken off guard by that statement.

Interesting.

"Zak?" he offered.

The Force swirled around the young man. It was thick, but it wasn't necessarily dark. And his awareness extended out and beyond the room in several dozen directions, and yet Luke couldn't pinpoint any specific purpose or intent.

After a moment, Zak looked up, and for a moment, Luke had no doubts of his niece's word. For but an instant, Zak's eyes took on the sickly yellow tinge of someone that had been delving deep in the dark side for extended periods. For but a moment, he looked older, slightly more drawn, slightly thinner. And then just like that, it all reverted back to his normal self. His eyes returned to the warm brown colour, and he looked less worn and more vibrant.

Inwardly, he shook himself to his senses. Clearly, he had been imagining things; the imaginings brought on by Jaina's expressions of her own worries regarding the young man.

"I guess," Zak started. He sighed. "It would be good to get some of this off my chest."

For the next couple of hours, Luke and Jaina sat quietly and listened to Zak as he detailed some of the things he had remembered; his attacks on Tash, Rebekah Jordan, Mara Jade and Jacen, and supposedly speaking to the spirit of Yoda during the period when all of the other Jedi were below the surface, hiding.

The last surprised Luke some. He knew from their stories when the Arrandas had first come to the Praxeum on Yavin 4 that they had met the wise former Jedi Master, Yoda, on Dagobah shortly before Luke himself had arrived for training. In fact, according to Tash, Yoda had even told them in response to Tash's request for training before they had gone their separate ways that his true student was to arrive shortly.

Luke had felt a slight presence other than Yoda's on the dark world when he'd first arrived. But he had later attributed that to the Dark Cave, where he had fought against what he had initially thought of as Darth Vader, but had actually turned out to be a shade of himself in Vader's life-support suit.

But Zak had never before spoken of the fact that his darker self had spoken to Yoda. He supposed that it made sense for the younger man to have forgotten even that much. The Sith side of him would have tried to repress anything with its own fading presence that Zak might have taken heart from.

But Luke couldn't help but feel the heartbreak his young friend felt when he recounted his own actions against his sister and his friends. He couldn't but reassure him of Rebekah's continued loyalty to him, despite what had happened to her.

She, faster than anyone else, had realised what was wrong with Zak. And she had been quickest to forgive him when he had recovered, when Darth Malonic had been relegated to the smallest, darkest, furthest part of Zak's mind and locked away, never to return to hurt anyone else again.

Though she had known him but a short time, she had been able to recognise that what he had been doing had been the actions of someone else. And she had tried to tell them all that from the start, before Zak had attacked even a single person, there was something off about him.

Luke had passed it off as a result of his captivity. He had been sure that what Rebekah had perceived as wrongness was nothing more than the built up stress of being Brakiss's hostage. He had been sure that Zak's temporary snap on Coruscant, when he had turned against the older Jedi without pause or apparent regret, had been a temporary act, caught up in the heat of revenge against the Sith that had done him wrong.

He had been quick to forgive the young man for that. That Jaina had been so quick spoke volumes of the way she felt for him, even though she wouldn't admit it.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter**

**18**

"_ENOUGH!"_

_ Rage course through me. Uncontrollable anger took me over momentarily and I let loose with a blast of Force so strong it would have pulped a man._

_ However, my target wasn't exactly a man. Yoda had been true to form, sending a comrade spirit to pester me with unwanted sermons of light versus dark, good versus evil. It was really grating on my patience. I couldn't stand his sanctimonious poodoo._

_ "The truth hurts your ears, doesn't it, young one," the spirit spoke. Footsteps that could only be heard by one in touch with the Force alerted me to the spirit's approach._

_ The transparent being kneeled down in front of me. I looked up into his eyes, scowling for all the good it would do me, hoping vainly that just conveying the right amount of hatred would make him go away._

_ I had better things to do than spend time with a goading spirit. I had to find Skywalker. I had to find him and the rest of the Jedi he was hiding and eradicate the lot. They were all standing in my way, and I wasn't going to stop until I removed them._

_ And, besides, truth was subjective to the one receiving it. That was a basic fundamental that everyone should have understood. I even told the spirit such._

_ He laughed. "You really think that?" then, cocking his head to the side in thought, he continued. "Perhaps. Some things can have many truths, and thus it is left to us to determine the truths in our own ways. Sometimes, what we find are facts, but more often than not, those perceived truths are merely the wishes of those interpreting it so. Opinions, rather than facts._

_ "So what I tell you about your current actions not lining up with the young boy I remember so well from Kiva and Dantooine are an actual truth, interpreted by present-day observations when compared with memories of the past."_

_ "Silence!" I shouted, hurling another ball of invisible energy at him, and accomplishing nothing._

_ Skywalker looked down at me, grunted something noncommittal, and then perched on the edge of one of the nearest seats set into the western risers. From there, he watched me, from there, he judged._

_ He should have understood better my situation. Like me, he, too, had been Jedi turned Sith. He, too, knew the seductive lure of power. He, too, had tasted the sweetness the dark side offered and liked it. And yet here he was, staring me down and trying to crush my ambition by feeding the dark flames at the far corners of my mind that were the remnants of the Zak Arranda everyone else knew._

_ I wasn't that child anymore. Why could no one see that? What was it about Zak that everyone liked so much that they would refuse to accept him turning to the dark side; refuse to accept that he had become me?_

_ I couldn't fathom it._

_ "For one so sure of his own destiny, you sure have a way of losing control when someone tries to contradict you." Skywalker said confidently. "You have attempted, futilely, to attack both myself and Master Yoda when either of us has tried to sway you back to what we believe is the right path for you._

_ "Is your confidence in yourself so shaky that you must resort to lashing out at others that try to shake it even further? Wouldn't one so powerful have unshakable faith in himself, his choices?"_

_ "Shut up, shut up, _SHUT UP_!" I screamed, flinging wave after wave at him, to no avail._

_ "Hm. It's just as I thought. And to think they wouldn't grant me the title of Master," the spirit added with a chuckle. I didn't get the reference. I wasn't amused, regardless._

_ He was right. My foundations were being disturbed by the words this long-dead Jedi were speaking. I couldn't even determine the exact cause, though, if I were to guess, I would have put credits down that it had something to do with the fact that I had yet to entirely eradicate all traces of the person I had once been from my mind._

_ He was still there, still pressing insistently against the mental barriers I had set up to keep him from regaining control. Those barriers were only a stopgap until I could determine how to get rid of him._

_ I had to do it soon. The more I hurt his companions, the more emboldened that part of me became. The more these trifling spirits spoke to me of "goodness" and "truth", the more encouraged. I could not allow that part of me to gain enough strength to wrest control of me, lest he kill himself in order to safeguard against losing control again._

_ Some might think him incapable of such an act. But they didn't know that side of me nearly as well as they thought. The Zak Arranda I had been would rather take his own life than see me destroy everything he cared for._

_ Jedi could be so infuriatingly self-sacrificing at the most inconvenient of times, I thought to myself bitterly._

_ "Is that all you have to say?" Anakin Skywalker said, appearing at my left without warning. "'Shut up'? Do you have nothing to say to defend your actions? Do you have no wish to convince me that what you're doing is for the greater good? What kind of Sith are you?"_

_ It wasn't a mocking question, I realised after opening my mouth to snap back at him. It was a curious one. And why not?_

_ Sith throughout history had always had one goal in mind—power. But to those Sith, power had been a means to an end. They fought for absolute power to rule a galaxy absolutely. They fought for what they considered peace. To the Sith, a dictatorship was much preferred over the chaos of a democracy._

_ To the Sith, democratic rule was the root of evil, the seed of needless destruction. And so they fought against that chaos to impose what they considered perfect order._

_ Zak admired their resolve. And yet, only one Sith had ever been able to impose his order on the galaxy, and that rule had not lasted for long. Thinking on it, Zak wondered what it was that made people fight for a democracy they could not make work. Freedom of choice was a foolish concept that inevitably led down the path of corruption._

_ But what did he fight for? Power? Was power a means to an end for him? Did he truly wish to rule over the galaxy? Did he really want to destroy all of the Jedi so that none could oppose him? Was he ready to destroy planets to keep the populace at large in check? Was he ready to become the next Palpatine?_

_ No. But power was still a means to an end for him. Though he had no desire to rule the galaxy, he did have a desire for violence and death. True chaos was a concept in which he revelled, and one which he had succeeded to some degree in bringing about to Skywalker's Praxeum._

_ He wanted power so he could fight. He wanted power so he could kill. He wanted to fight those he deemed worthy of his attention. To die at the hands of one of them would be a worthy death, if undesired. To kill them all would prove his supremacy to all. But he couldn't just kill them all like nerfs awaiting slaughter. He had to face them. He had to beat them. He had to _destroy_ them._

_ "I am my own kind of Sith," I replied, staring the spirit in the eye and trying to project some of the malice I felt towards him for being a Skywalker. "And I have no desire to justify my actions to the likes of you. You are beneath such worth."_

_ The spirit shimmered from view, reappearing a few meters away to my right, clad head to foot in an armour-like life-support system that had been dark, foreboding in life. Like the rest of the spirit now, it lacked colour, save for the faint glow of one who was "one with the Force"._

_ "Then tell me, young pest," Anakin started, his voice distorted now by the helmet of the suit, "what it is you fight for? What makes you worthy of being branded Sith?_

_ "Do not think, old man, than cheap illusions are enough to change my mind. Whether you appear to me as Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker or as Sith Lord Darth Vader, you are still not worth my time. The fact that you would attempt this kind of trickery only serves to reinforce my contempt for you."_

_ "But you forget …" Vader gestured idly. "Deception is a key skill of the Sith. Back to the days of the Rebuilder, who destroyed the Sith to rebuild it in his own image, deception has always been something that Sith need to keep close to their hearts. Do not trust, do not foster trust. Deceive, kill, and then take what is yours."_

_ "I know that!" I snapped. "Do you think I would have gone undetected so long amongst these contemptible fools if I knew nothing of deception? Even your incompetent son was unable to discern my true intentions until it was too late."_

_ "He came close," Vader reminded me. And, it seemed, there was something smug about that mechanised tone._

_ As if on cue, unbidden images stormed into my mind of the aftermath of my attack on Tash. Luke Skywalker had pinned me with such Force that I was unable to overcome it and had very nearly come to the point of drawing his blade and drilling it through both my chest and the wall._

_ Only my unique foresight and some elegant lies about "just arriving" at the scene had saved me from that fate, and granted me the time I needed to build my strength to something superior to the fool Jedi Master._

_ "But in the end, it was not he that discerned my nature. It was that traitorous wife and idiot nephew of his." My hand clenched into a fist, seemingly of its own accord, at the memory._

_ Fighting the two of them like that in semi-close quarters had nearly cost me my head more than once. And then, to make matters worse, Lowbacca and Raynar Thul had arrived on the scene and added their blades to the fray, turning a duel that had been two blades against two blades into a four-to-two chaotic dance against me. I had barely escaped with my life. But leaving them all alive and conscious had resulted in my cover being blown._

_ Vader cocked his head to the side, in thought, and then shimmered again and became Anakin Skywalker once more._

_ Skywalker knelt down beside me and reached out to touch a hand to my shoulder. The look I shot him discouraged him, however, and he pulled the hand back instead._

_ "I implore you," he started, his voice soft, reassuring—as if I needed any of that dross, "look within yourself. Find that what Master Yoda and I have said is true. Find that side of you that laughs and has a good time with friends, and turn your back on the entity you have become. There is still hope for you, Zak. You haven't yet committed the deeds I became infamous for."_

_ "Leave me," I demanded, but there was no heat in my voice. What should have been had been taken and twisted into strength by the part of me that was listening to Skywalker in earnest. "All of you fool Skywalkers just LEAVE ME BE!"_

_ And with that, Anakin disappeared._

* * *

Loru Fa left the Prime Minister alone in his chamber, seeing about the duties he had just assigned her.

Alone once more, the Kaminoan leader turned his attention once more to his surveillance holos. The planet's "guest" was making the most of his time, wandering the city and yet remaining inconspicuous.

At times, it was hard for Koa Ne to spot him. But when he did, he scolded himself for having missed it. Amongst his genetics had been advanced perception skills. It was what made him an effective leader of his people.

Zak Arranda was presently hooked up to the machines in the science lab run by Sane Fa. He was motionless on the table, a thin sheet draped over him for no other purpose than, perhaps, some small measure of comfort. The devices that were responsible for bringing his forgotten memories close to the surface for the young Jedi to relive were firmly attached. Equipment monitoring his brain signals and his health signs ran soundlessly around the young Jedi.

Curiosity twinged at the edge of his mind; curiosity at what the young man was seeing in his own mind, what horrors had been buried by his subconscious, deemed too traumatic for him to remember.

His finger reached out for the control that would connect him to Sane Fa's office off the main laboratory. It would take but a few words from him to have the data transfer equipment hooked up to the devices attached to Zak Arranda's head, and he would be able to see such images.

He caught himself just in time, and pressed another button instead.

Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker's face appeared on the holo before him, replacing the surveillance of the younger Jedi. "Prime Minister," the Jedi greeted with a genuine smile. "What can I do for you?"

Pleasant as always, Koa Ne sometimes found the elder Jedi to be disarming in the way he deferred to the leadership of state officials. He had often expected, from his past experiences with the Jedi of the Old Republic, that the Jedi leaders would have retained their own arrogant view of being equal to those that were actually their betters. This younger generation of Jedi, it seemed, were much improved of their forebears.

"If you are not too busy, Master Jedi, I would greatly appreciate the chance to speak with you," Koa Ne said. As usual, he kept his facial features completely devoid of even the slightest expression, in case the Jedi picked up on it.

Though, thinking about it, he didn't know why. The time for the truth had come. It was unavoidable. The Jedi had to know what was going on in Tipoca City. Koa Ne was wholly convinced now that Skywalker was competent enough to assist them with their troubles. And though it galled his Kaminoan sense of pride, the time had come to ask for outside help.

Never before had a Kaminoan Prime Minister been put in the position of having to make that decision.

_Desperate times,_ he told himself.

"Certainly. When did you have in mind?"

"Right now, if you please," Koa Ne replied, blinking rapidly. Again, Skywalker had completely disarmed him with his deference.

"I'll be right there."


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter**

**19**

Jaina had been unable to find Zak all that day. Indeed, she could rarely find him unless he wanted to be found, it seemed.

He wasn't sleeping in their assigned quarters, and, as far as she could tell, he hadn't been assigned other quarters within the city. Also, it seemed as though he wasn't sleeping on the _Silent Hunter_ either. Zak had never been one for making the bed, and the bed aboard the ship remained in the same condition as when they'd first arrived.

She was worried that perhaps he wasn't sleeping at all. Could it be that this was one of the side-effects of the treatment he was going through? Or was it because of that spectre he had claimed he'd seen when they'd first arrived? Honestly, she just couldn't tell.

When they did spend time together, he seemed detached somehow, distant. They didn't touch unless she instigated it. He didn't speak unless in reply to something she or someone else had said to him. It was as if he had become a completely different person from who he had been before the first treatment.

And that worried her. Especially when she remembered the afternoon she had approached him outside in the rain. He had looked so feral then, so much like who he had been after Brakiss had messed him up. She could have sworn his eyes had been close to that sickly yellow, and that there'd been a scar she had never seen before.

But it had only been for an instant. She considered at the time that she had imagined it, that it had been a trick of the light combined with his mood and her fears of what the treatment was doing to him. And despite how many times she ran the possibilities in circles within her mind, she kept coming back to that.

The _Hunter_ was quiet as she sat in the central spot of the cockpit, her legs drawn up with her arms around them and her chin resting on her knees as she thought. Outside, the rain pounded mercilessly against the hull, though none of it reached the transparisteel screen at the front of the cockpit. For once, Jaina was slightly saddened by the fact that the _Silent Hunter_'s cockpit was below the main hull of the fore end of the ship. The sight of the splattering raindrops might have served as a distraction.

The cockpit was dimly let around her, with only the emergency lights casting a slight glow and the communications panel blinking at her.

Blinking.

Why was it blinking?

Frowning, confused, she unfurled herself and slipped out of the captain's chair and into the co-pilot's. A quick flick across the board keyed up the system. A message had been left in the storage banks several hours ago, while most of the systems had been in sleep cycle mode.

She read the message twice over to be sure and sighed. Then she flicked some hair away from her right eye and keyed in a direct line to Coruscant.

It connected quickly and the holocomm projected a scaled image of the very person she hadn't been expecting to hear from.

"_Well …_" the young woman said, hands on her hips and a frown tainting her facial features. "_Just when were you going to tell me that you passed your trial?_"

Jaina frowned in response and ran her fingers through her hair. "I was getting around to it. Jeez, Talesa, you're so impatient! How did you hear about it? If I recall, you were away on a mission when I was on Coruscant."

"_Master Keyan heard about it when we returned to the capital._" A pause. The frown lightened up and the other Jedi touched a finger to her lips. "_I heard something along the lines of you being some sort of sword? What's the deal with that?_"

Jaina shrugged to display her own confusion with that particular topic. No amount of meditation thus far had revealed any insights as to what her uncle could possibly have seen to make such a declaration. "It's got me puzzled."

Talesa didn't respond to that save nodding. She seemed to be thinking it through herself, Jaina thought by the look of her. She was absently stroking her chin with her chin tilted in that almost comical way of hers when she was concentrating on something.

"Is that the reason you contacted me?" Jaina asked, left eyebrow hitched.

"_No, no, no; not at all. You know I would never waste such a long distance call for something so frivolous. I wanted to see how things were doing there. I understand you're on Kamino._"

"Blast it, Talesa!" Jaina said, blowing out her breath in frustration. "Just where are you getting your information from? The only people that are supposed to know about that are the council and our friends and family back home."

She never revealed the name of the planet they were currently residing on while on an open frequency, nor even a secured one for that matter. There was no telling who could be listening, and the point was to stay hidden from Alitha and her Second Imperium.

They had already been forced out of the Yavin system by her insistence of acquiring Zak for her own ends. They could not afford to be forced out of their new home, especially so soon after they had found it.

Cab'uL Tuar was a rogue planet, and an enigma, all wrapped up nicely within the dark, cold of space. As a rogue, it had no sister planets, no moons, and revolved around no star. As an enigma, it defied all logic regarding those facts and sustained a thriving ecosystem with conditions that were more or less comfortable for human habitation.

They had yet to discover the entirety of how that was possible, but initial signs seemed to indicate extensive terraforming by an ancient civilisation. Evidence of such a civilisation had already been discovered the previous year, entirely by accident, by Zak, Talesa and Jacen while on a hiking trip. So the theory of terraforming didn't entirely resemble nonsense when that was taken into consideration.

And yet, the fact that Talesa knew that she, Zak and Luke were on Kamino when she wasn't supposed to know it disturbed Jaina—not in so much that Talesa knew, for she was a friend that could be trusted, but in that the fact that it raised questions as to who else was aware of it.

If her father was right, there was a cancerous element within the New Republic's governing class. Already, her mother had been targeted by foes unknown, as had other senators. A few had been killed. In Han Solo's mind, that apparently pointed towards infiltration by the Second Imperium.

That their attempt against Jaina's mother had failed possibly solidified that theory in her father's mind, since she knew he was at least partially convinced of the Imperials' lack of ability and efficiency.

And if such an element existed, was it possible that they, too, had discerned that the three of them were away from the Jedi's new, hidden facility and at a place they could get to? Was it possible that, if they had that information, they would send an agent to apprehend or kill them? Had they already?

An image of that strangely altered Zak popped into her mind and she forced it down with the power of her will alone.

"_I planted a tracking chip on the _Hunter_ when I was last around._" Then, seeing the horrified look on Jaina's face she waved a hand dismissively and giggled. "_I'm kidding. But I do refuse to give up my sources. They're called 'confidential' for a reason, you know?_" She grinned.

Jaina frowned. "Don't ever make jokes about tagging my baby," she said sternly, unconsciously patting the console next to the holocomm.

"_Ooh; touchy, touchy,_" Talesa said with another childish giggle. "_Are you heading back home when you're done, or can you make a detour to Coruscant?_"

"Any particular reason?"

"_Not really. Master Keyan and I will likely be away for a while. It sounds like we'll be out peacekeeping in the Outer Rim this time, so it might be a while before I see you again. I thought, maybe, we could catch up._" She smiled hopefully, which, in turn, brought one out of Jaina. "_See? Not such an objectionable idea, is it?_"

"No; I guess it isn't." Jaina thought it through and then ran some numbers in her head. "Uncle Luke might head straight to Coruscant, if—when we're done here—Zak comes to some sort of positive realisation about his future as a Jedi. He'll want to get things ready for the trial so that he can be there himself.

"Zak and I will be returning home so that he can experience his personal reflection. Assuming he'll progress as a Jedi, that will be before the actual trial. Then we'll be heading to the capital after that. I would say we'll be there in about three weeks."

She paused at the disappointment that washed across Talesa's face. "When do you leave?"

"_About one week._"

"I'm sorry Talesa. I really am. Maybe we can catch up when you and Master Keyan return?"

Her friend brightened at that spark of hope, smiling once more. "_I'll hold you to that!_"

Jaina nodded. "And I'll be sure to let you know the results of Zak's trials, so you don't end up finding out through those rather dubious sources of yours."

"_Dubious?_"

"Well … suspicious. Having access to information they shouldn't; what if they passed that on to Imperials?"

Talesa waved a hand off at the suggestion. "_No chance of that. They owe me huge favours. And—nope. That's all I'll say on an unsecured frequency._" The small holo lifted something then, and Jaina saw that it was a tall glass of something dark. She drank a few mouthfuls before tucking the glass out of sight of the holo transmitters again.

"_How's Zak doing?_"

Randomly asked by someone else, Jaina might have been taken off guard. But Talesa was a master at switching topics of discussion. Once, she and Jaina had been discussing Jaina's latest attempts at rewiring a particularly stubborn, ancient and deactivated droid in landing bay on Yavin 4 when suddenly, the strange girl started talking about the finer points of diplomacy with Ewoks.

Since it had been nearly a whole two years since Talesa and Keyan had been dispatched to Endor for negotiations with the locals to set up a research base there, Jaina hadn't expected it and it had given her whiplash when she'd spun her head around to look at the girl and request an explanation.

It had been such a fluid, uninterrupted change of pace that no one that hadn't known the girl for years could possibly have kept up.

"He's doing fine, I think," Jaina said. "I'm worried, but then he hasn't really given me much reason of late not to do so."

"_Oh?_"

"Our bond has changed," Jaina explained after a moment. "It feels muted, like he's asleep or something—even when he's standing right in front of me talking to me. I've never experienced this before.

"When he was darksiding on us he'd learned to sometimes shut me out of his mind when he didn't want me to learn some of his motives or strategies. But that felt completely different. That felt like a wall had been thrown up between us."

"_What does Master Skywalker say about that? Does he think it's a natural evolution of the bond? Or … perhaps … weakening of it?_"

"If it was a weakening of it, I'd be able to accept that," Jaina admitted. And it was true. She had long given thought to how she might handle the unique bond between her and Zak being nullified one day. And she had come to realise that as long as she didn't lose him, she was fine with that.

"_But you're not convinced that's the case?_" Talesa offered. She had a frightening way of reading people, sometimes, Jaina reflected.

Jaina shook her head. "I'll be the first to admit it if I'm wrong, but I'd have imagined that the link's natural nullification might be more sudden, and feel more like a permanent wall being thrown in place." She sighed her frustration and let her chin drop into open palms upraised for the task. "I just don't know."

"_Speak with the guy in charge. He or she might be able to offer some suggestions on what it might be. Maybe the technology they're using is interfering with your ability to touch each others' minds. If that's the case, it might only be a temporary problem that will fix itself when you leave._"

"Has anyone ever told you that you're an annoyingly optimistic person?" Jaina smiled while Talesa grinned. "I might speak to the Prime Minister and see if it's possible to arrange an appointment to see the head lab tech."

"_Do that._" Pause, then; "_What aren't you telling me?_"

_Stang!_ Jaina thought bitterly. _Mind your own business, woman!_

"_Out with it. Or I fly there right now and find out for myself!_"

"Oh, fine!" Jaina sighed again. "The other day, he seemed different. Not himself. Something else, if I were to say."

For the next hour and a half, that's all the two of them talked about; Jaina's fears regarding Zak and what he was possibly going through. Fears that she had only shared to a brief extent with her uncle were discussed at length with Talesa.

By the time they had run out of things to say, Jaina felt much better. Her doubts and fears were no longer at the forefront of her thoughts. She was able to think about Zak for minutes at a time without wondering if he was alright or what darkness was possibly bothering him at present.

She thanked her friend for the talk, promised again to visit her as soon as she could, and then cut the link.

Another message had come in from her uncle. Text only; telling her about a meeting he was about to have with the Prime Minister. It didn't specify what the meeting was for. Point of fact, Jaina guessed by the wording that her uncle wasn't too sure himself. She filed it away in the comm. system and then put it all into standby mode before she left the _Hunter_ and returned to the safety of the city dome.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter**

**20**

_Anakin had not returned in days. Of that I was glad. His incessant babbling about the nature of the Force had started to wear thin on my patience._

_ However, a part of me was a little disappointed. After my fight with the Skywalkers, I would have relished the chance to vent my frustrations at not having killed either of them._

_ I'd almost beat Luke Skywalker to a bloody pulp before his wife and niece had jumped in to protect him. I hoped he wouldn't recover soon. The only thing that would be more satisfying than him dying from festering wounds would be having broken his neck when I'd had my hands around it._

_ All of the younger Jedi had cowered against the walls like vermin as Jaina, Mara and I had dashed back and forth, charging at each other with lightsabers drawn and hurling Force attacks at each other like there was no shortage._

_ Mara went down eventually, but it took a great deal of effort. As I'd constantly thought, she had proven once more that she had been entirely deserving of the title Emperor's Hand. Her skill with the blade and her ability to command powers that most Jedi viewed as dark and taboo had proven useful in my duel against her and her niece._

_ Jaina hadn't shied away from my attacks, much as I thought she might. She met each of my slashes, each of my lunges without any thought to how dangerous they were to her, or the intent behind those strikes. It had been as if she had been oblivious to the fact that I was, in earnest, trying to kill them both._

_ Unfortunately, she stopped me from killing her aunt. That was mildly frustrating, to say the least. And what made it all the more worse was the fact that I had found myself consistently unable to breach her defences. The few times my blades had made it past hers, it was only because she had been drawing me out in attempts to exploit openings such moves would create._

_ My only recourse had been retreat. Even though Jaina had been fighting me alone, she had been more than a match for my level of skill._

_ I was unable to fathom that. Mara should have been more of a challenge for me, or Luke. Both of them had some training in the ways of the dark side. Coupled with their extensive training as Jedi, they should have been the most dangerous people on this entire moon to me._

_ But Jaina Solo, who had far more limited exposure to dark side training—through Brakiss—had been the challenge. Her strikes had been powerful, precise. Her movements had been more like a graceful dance, and she never once placed a foot wrong when dashing around me to get to an opening she had seen that I had very nearly missed._

_ And the fire in her eyes …_

_ Perhaps that had been the reason. Luke and Mara, both Masters, both teachers, had wanted to save me on some level. Luke's history with me had possibly clouded his reason, and he and his wife had sought to redeem me, and that had dulled their blade. Their technique had been too slow to be effective, their strength easy to shrug off—they applied only enough to ensure a hit, but not enough to drive me back._

_ Jaina, on the other hand, was a different story. The bond between us allowed me to feel every little twinge of pain she felt as she swung her lightsaber to connect with me—me, not my weapon. I could feel the anguish she felt at attacking me. But beyond all of that, there was an unshakeable determination to kill me. At that point, after she had witnessed what I had done to her uncle and aunt, she wanted me dead, she had thought me beyond any form of redemption. She attacked with purpose to kill, not to maim._

_ But I'm hypothesising. And if there's one thing I've learned from Skywalker that I still appreciate, it's that hypothesising is all well and good, but not always indicative of fact. It's little more than guessing. So I know I shouldn't dwell on it._

_ However, Jaina's attitude was indicative of something far more interesting to me than her pain and anguish; her potential. That she had gone for the kill rather than trying to disable me told me that she had immense potential to become my apprentice and learn the ways of the dark side. Already, she had shown a willingness to do away with such frail concepts of mercy, compassion. She had shown a bloodlust that had, at the time, rivalled my own._

_ I smiled at the thought. Jaina Solo as an apprentice really would make me a formidable force in the galaxy. There would be no Jedi that would dare to oppose us. No Jedi would have the strength. And with my growing abilities to see future events, abilities the old Zak had been trying to suppress and ignore since he had discovered them, I would foresee the rise of anyone that deluded themselves into challenging me._

_ The galaxy would become my battlefield. Glorious war would rage across sea and earth and space until the entire galaxy bowed to my feet and worshipped me as a being even more powerful than Palpatine had been in his day._

_ "How conceited of you," a voice said from the darkness, "to wish others to view you in the light of the gods of old. Are you truly mad?"_

_ The voice was unfamiliar to me. But for an instant, the feminine quality to it made me spin in surprise, expecting a follow-up attack by Jaina at a time when I was too busy with my own thoughts to be expecting it._

_ But when I did turn, I saw yet another of those damnable spirits approaching. This one was different only in that it was a woman. She still remained translucent, still retained the faint glow of someone who was dead and had passed on into that realm in which there was nothing but the Force._

_ What struck me about her after a moment of examining her was just how familiar she looked, compared to how unknown the voice had been._

_ She had long hair tied up in a high braid at the back, and startling blue eyes. Her face was smooth, narrowing to a small chin. Her lips were full. She stood almost to my height with a slender build her garments did almost nothing to conceal. She wore a robe, loosely over her shoulders and not tied in the middle._

_ Beneath that robe, where I had expected to find a tunic and leather boots as was typical of a Jedi, was instead a body suit of dyed leather that hugged her form tightly. It was adorned with some sort of armour plates on the chest and shoulders and on the arms and legs. An armoured collar came halfway up around her neck, sinking to a low V in the front._

_ "And who the hell are you?" I demanded. Though she looked very familiar, I was unable to determine who she was. She was definitely no one that I knew, no one that I had ever seen before._

_ "I wouldn't expect you to know me," the woman said with a sad smile. "We have never met, and yet I have been aware of you since long before you were conceived."_

_ "Speak sense woman," I snapped. "And then leave me. As I have told the other nuisances, I have no time to deal with the dead trying to tell me how to live my life."_

_ The woman sighed, and then seated herself in front of me with her legs crossed and her hands resting lightly upon her knees. She looked up at me, gave me another one of those sad little smiles, and then gestured in front of her, indicating that she wanted me to take a seat._

_ I ignored her, deliberately crossing my arms and taking up an aggressive stance to let her know that I was not going to cave to her requests, nor did I care for them._

_ "Who are you?"_

_ "My name is Cyandrah," the woman said. And it was then that I noticed, just barely, the twin lightsabers hanging from her belt—one to each side._

_ "Jedi." It was a statement of contempt._

_ "Yes," she replied, confirming the suspicion. "And your great ancestor."_

_ That brought me up short. That I could remember, there had been no Jedi in the Arranda family in all of its recorded history—and that history went back at least two thousand years._

_ Then pain._

* * *

"_Tash?" That was the first thing out of my mouth. The first thing I had been able to say for days on end. For weeks._

_ I could remember everything, though. I had been conscious of everything the Sith did with my body, to the people I cared about, my peers, my mentors. The last memory I had of my own actions was taking Jaina into the _Silent Hunter _ on Coruscant after Darth Pravus had knocked her out._

_ But I had been powerless to stop any of the things that followed. All I could do was watch, beating fruitlessly against the powerful psychic walls that had been put in place to keep me from regaining control._

_ But now, inexplicably, I had control. I had control of my body, of my mind. The Sith was still there. I could feel him, tucked away in the corner, in shock, trying to understand what was going on. But he couldn't. His rational thinking was destroyed by this sudden revelation._

_ And yet, all I could see before me was Tash. Older, much more sad, and clad in armour I didn't recognise and yet knew was for Jedi. But it was still Tash.._

_ How? Had _he_ killed her when I had been dormant? No. That wouldn't explain why she looked older, or the armour._

_ "I am not your sister," the woman replied. The smile now grew, became more pronounced. It was not a sad smile anymore, but one of happiness, joy. Could she sense that I had regained control? Did she know that the Sith had been locked away, even if it was only temporary?_

_ "You're not Tash." I said it as a confirmation rather than a question, because now that I looked more closely, I knew that she couldn't have been._

_ Though her eyes were the same colour as Tash's, they were the same shape as our grandmother's. Her kind face was exactly the same shape as our mother's, down to the shape of the nose. Her hair was much longer than Tash's, and her body more lean._

_ She shook her head, still smiling. "But I am of your blood."_

_ "You said your name was Cyandrah?"_

_ "Yes," she replied. The smile faded away, but her demeanour remained; she still seemed in good spirits. "That is my name. Cyandrah Arranda."_

_ "There are no records in my family's history of you," I tell her, recalling all I knew. The training I had been doing with Skywalker had helped to improve my memory recall a little bit—not that my recall was bad to begin with, but it had been a side effect of the mental training all the Jedi students at the Praxeum underwent._

_ "Of course not. Your family's history only goes as far back as fifteen hundred years after I died." And again, she looked sad. Maybe because the topic of how long ago she had died had been brought up, or because of something in relation to it. To me, she seemed the type that wouldn't have been overly concerned with her own death._

_ "You told … you told _him _that you had been aware of me since before I'd been born," I said to her. She nodded. "What exactly did you mean by that? I thought those that had become one with the Force couldn't remain in the material world for long."_

_ "Which is true. We become 'less' _with_ the Force when we manifest ourselves, much as I have now. Eventually, with time, the pull of the current becomes too strong to override with our own will, and we truly become one."_

_ "You mean it pulls you under."_

_ "In a sense. We remain aware of ourselves and those with us, but we lose the ability to manifest in the material world. A lot of Jedi experience this eventually. Sith, too. Despite how they detest the idea of submitting to the Force, as they assume becoming one with it entails, they experience that fate when they die much as anyone does."_

_ "I understand." And I truly did. I knew that the Sith within me was aware that his eventual fate entailed becoming one with the Force, and he was genuinely disgusted by the concept. "But how does that explain how you're able to manifest after more than three thousand years."_

_ "That's a little easier to explain to someone like you that understands the basic concepts of becoming one with the Force." She grinned, as if genuinely pleased with herself. "In some few exceptional cases, certain individuals are able to manifest because of the way they treat the current."_

_ "They allow themselves to be lost in the current, rather than clinging to the material world," I guessed. "That way, they conserve their strength for those few times that they want to visit the material world?"_

_ "Exactly," Cyandrah said, grinning wider still. "Good to know that some of my snappy intellect made it down the line to some of my descendants. I've been popping in once every hundred or so years to find out what information I can about my descendants._

_ "Would it surprise you to know that there hasn't been an Arranda Jedi since me, before you and your sister that is?"_

_ "Not in the records. But, as you say, those are limited to the past two hundred years. Are you saying that it was you, and not your siblings, are my direct ancestor?"_

_ "Only child. I had no siblings. And yes; I had children. Three beautiful children. I believe you and your sister are descended from my youngest son. You have his look. He got a lot of it from his father, bishwag that he was."_

_ "A loveless relationship?"_

_ "Hardly. There was much love involved … on my part. In all the centuries since, I have never found out for sure if he truly loved me or if he was using me to spawn future generations of Sith."_

_ It took me a second to grasp what she had said before it sunk in and my head snapped up. I looked at her through wide eyes, my jaw hanging slack with disbelief. "You married a _Sith_?"_

_ "Well, I didn't know he was a Sith at the time. Keep in mind that this was more than three millennia ago, Zak," she replied. Sadness again crept into her features, her tone. She looked down at her lap as she continued, as if shamed by the memories. "The Sith were many at the time, and the Jedi had recently adopted a policy of not taking in those over a certain age for training. As such, I believed the man I married to be someone that had been ruled out for training because of that new policy._

_ "He was careful never to let his true nature show even an ounce when we were together. And his disguise was made even more complete by the genuine love and affection he had for our children, as well as the warrants on his head by the Sith Empire for smuggling supplies to planets within their borders that were trying to rebel against their tyranny. I was jaded to just how deeply undercover a Sith could dive. A marriage between a Sith and a Jedi? It had never happened before, not even as a pretext to spying on the Order. No one had any reason to suspect that my husband wasn't who, or what, he had claimed to be._

_ "I was already disgraced in the eyes of the order for going against policy by marrying at all, and then going on to have not one child, but three. Only one—my eldest, who your sister happens to be named after—was Force sensitive. She died. Her father had her killed because when she found out about his true nature, she tried to tell me. At least, that's what I later found out, when I met her again in the nether realms. Only my sons survived me. Only they went on to continue the family."_

_ "He murdered his own daughter, just to keep his secret?" I was appalled by the mere concept, and, I felt, even the Sith within me felt disgusted by it._

_ After all, the reason he had come out so strongly in me was because of how I felt, and ostensibly how he felt, about Jaina. He would kill her if she got in his way and left him no choice, but he would not have killed his own offspring. Had I influenced that part of his nature? Or had that developed of his own feelings and thoughts? I wasn't sure. In fact, though mildly curious, it was something that I didn't intend to explore any further. It was a blessing that he had his limits. Why should I shatter that illusion by having those limits explained?_

_ "Vile creature!" slipped from my lips before I could stop myself. It hadn't come from me. The Sith had regained a little control—enough to say just that before I stamped him back down into the dark recesses of my mind._

_ "After my husband's nature was uncovered and the information disseminated throughout the Jedi Order, I was recalled to Tython. My disgrace was made public. The Republic's faith in the Jedi was shaken even further than it had been since the attack on Coruscant years before. The Council used my experience as evidence on why emotions needed to be controlled and suppressed, rather than embraced._

_ "I was taken off duty. They didn't want someone tainted the way I was leading Republic troops into battle, potentially against a Sith I might hesitate to order killed on sight. They couldn't take the risk, and they refused to believe my insistence that I would kill the man myself if I ever saw him again._

_ "Tasha's death woke them up to that. They figured that if I wouldn't have before, then I definitely would have to avenge the death of my child. And, eventually, I did. It cost me my own life, but I managed to destroy him, and his plans to breed future generations of Sith by using unsuspecting, maverick Jedi."_

_ "I don't mean to sound rude," I started after a few moments of respectful silence, "but why have you come. I appreciate it—of course—since the revelation of your identity seems to have restored me to myself. Even if it's only temporary, at least for the moment I am able to stop him from whatever he had been planning to do right now."_

_ "I thought I might lend a hand to the Masters that followed me that have known you and are trying their best to reach you," she offered. She wasn't smiling anymore when she looked up at me, but at least she seemed less sad, more resolved. She pushed herself to her feet and approached until she was within arms' reach. "And … and because I believe that the Sith alter-ego that's taken root in your soul is a product of my late husband's interfering."_

_ That was a scary thought, indeed. "How so?"_

_ "I believe that at the point of death, he transferred a part of his soul to the nearest living being—my eldest son. And that soul fragment probably jumped into my younger son's line somewhere further down the track. Eventually, it faded from existence altogether, but not before altering the personality of the person it had resided in last to the point of creating this persona that has infected the lines since."_

_ "That's … a little far off, don't you think?"_

_ "Possibly." Followed by a small, conceding smile. "I know it's a pretty ridiculous theory. And, indeed, it would have no basis within any psychological circles. I believe any of the Jedi across any century that I might have posited the theory to might have thought me mad. But in following your family's history as I have, I have found that madness and violence make themselves known in some members of the family when they approach a certain age. If I had to guess, I would say that they spend their lives fighting such urges before something happens that causes them to lose all self-control."_

_ "And the Arranda line has seen more than its fair share of violent criminals. That's the reason our representation amongst the noble houses was stripped of us a long time ago. Five successive generations were known to all of Alderaan as the Royal Blood because of their preference for noble prey. The Organas, the Aldes, the Thuls and the Rists all consistently lost their intended heirs days before they were to assume leadership of their respective houses."_

_ Cyandrah nodded and turned to glare at something I couldn't see. It was probably a memory. "A stain that hasn't resurfaced since, but has served as a reminder to those that might have considered reinstating the Arrandas to the representative council."_

_ "Not that nobility is something Tash or I would want. Can't be a Jedi if we're politicians."_

_ Cyandrah laughed at that, and I was struck by just how much like my mother's laugh it sounded; so warm and jovial, and I would never have guessed at the sorrow she had endured for more than three millennia._

_ "And you believe that such darkness resides within me because of my ancestors?"_

_ "Like I said;" Cyandrah replied, gesturing absently, "it's probably a stupid theory. But, regardless, you do need help in controlling that darkness."_


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter**

**21**

Their room was, unsurprisingly, empty when Jaina returned to it ten minutes later. She looked over everything once, looking for some sign that Zak had at least stopped by at some point through the day. He hadn't. That was becoming just a little more than frustrating, really.

So, instead, Jaina seated herself on the floor in the middle of the room, crossed her legs, closed her eyes, and allowed her mind to open and drift as she began her daily meditation.

She had gone a few days without meditating since they had arrived on Kamino, preferring instead the warm comfort of bed and the deadness of sleep. She rarely dreamed, when she slept, but when she did those dreams were often vibrant and alive, the images assaulting her senses as if she were awake and living the things she experienced.

So sitting as she was now, more or less comfortable—if a little chilled by the floor—the state of mind she needed to reach to be able to meditate come quick and easy. It also helped to have spoken to Talesa about all of the things that had weighed heavily on her mind.

Her awareness stretched out as far as she could push it. She could feel the turbulent surface of the ocean outside the city, far below, as it crashed against the supports that anchored the city to the highest points of sturdy rock outcroppings. She could feel all the marine life around Tipoca City darting around in the water. She could feel the aiwahs leaping from the surface and gliding through the air, almost as if they could fly, before they dived back down and snatched up an unsuspecting fish in their great mouths.

She could feel all of the life within the great city as well. All of the Kaminoans that were going about their business; some to labour, some to research, some to manage. The Kaminoan Prime Minister, Koa Ne, was in his chambers with her uncle, Luke Skywalker, as she expected. But there were two other presences—both human—other than her own.

Her eyes snapped open and her concentration broke for a moment. That made four humans in a city full of Kaminoans. There were only three in the Jedi party; Jaina, Zak, and her Uncle Luke. So where had the fourth human come from? Were they another client of their hosts?

But then why had they not come across them before? Even in a city this size, the amount of walking Jaina and Zak had done respectively made the chances of not coming across another human remote.

But then another thought crossed her mind.

Were the Kaminoans still cloning?

Why not? The New Republic hadn't expressly forbidden them from doing so. Clones as doubles or as body parts served well for those that could pay for the privilege. The Kaminoans would never have joined the Republic had such sanctions been placed on their business. And the Republic was nothing like the Empire had been; they wouldn't just take by force what they couldn't control through coercion.

Or would it? With the recent happenings within the Senate, how could Jaina possibly say with certainty that traitors hadn't managed to worm their way into the policy making procedures. Palpatine had done that very thing in the days of the Old Republic, after all.

Frowning for a moment, she eased the tension in her brow and shoulders, closed her eyes, and stretched out her awareness once more.

_Uncle Luke's with the Prime Minister_, she thought reassuringly when she confirmed as much. _I'm here._ She reached out to the closest of the other two presences. It felt familiar; tinged with darkness but not overly much. The person's thoughts were turbulent. When Jaina delved within them for but a second, she saw images of the Praxeum on Yavin 4, of Zak attacking her and her brothers with an expression of rage so pure it made her instinctively recoil.

It was Zak. And he was casually walking in her direction. So that meant, without having to confirm it, that the fourth human presence in the science labs on level seventeen was the other guest they had not been told about.

Not that she could exactly resent their hosts for not bringing that up. Privacy was key in their business, and Jaina could fully understand that.

She shook the thought from her mind and allowed herself to drift once more. With Zak so close, perhaps he would even sense her efforts and decide to join her. The mingling of their minds was something they both relished experiencing when they had the time.

Absently drifting as she was, she found herself reflecting on all of the events that had brought them to this place, at this time, for this reason.

Brakiss had first attacked the Praxeum eight years ago. After kidnapping her, her brother Jacen, and their friend Lowbacca, from Lando's GemDiver Station in orbit of Yavin, Brakiss had then set to the task of training them in his ways.

He had fed the three of them Imperial propaganda designed for people of their age to absorb, hoping that it would leave an impression. Lowbacca's translator droid, MT-D, had been reprogrammed to spew that same dross from his own vocaliser, which had prompted them into switching him off most all of the time.

Combat training under him had been brutal. She and Jacen had been forced to fight against one another, believing that the other was a hologram of Darth Vader, as had been projected over their bodies to help with the deception. It had been only their familiarity with each other that had rendered the trick futile. All it took were a few passes of the blade for Jaina to realise that who she was swinging at was Jacen, and not her grandfather. A holographic representation of her grandfather would have fought with his style, not Jacen's.

Brakiss had punished them severely for thwarting his plan, and then, strangely, awarded them in a fashion for having seen through the deception.

Months after their escape, Brakiss had made his presence known again. The Shadow Academy had appeared from hyperspace in orbit of Coruscant, bypassing security patrols completely. The battle had been brief, and then the Academy had disappeared again after several children around her age had been kidnapped from the lower levels of the planet, where they wouldn't likely be missed.

But all of those events had culminated in Brakiss's assault on the Praxeum itself with his Darkest Knight—Zekk—leading the charge. Zekk had been a friend of Jaina and her brother. That he was fighting for Brakiss had stung them both.

Jaina had eventually won him back around when she defeated him in a one-on-one duel during the invasion.

Inevitably, the Imperials had been knocked back and Brakiss had been thought destroyed along with the Shadow Academy when it exploded.

Only to resurface two years later.

Armed and alone, he stormed the Praxeum in a cloaked ship and slaughtered half a dozen of Jaina's friends with little warning and no mercy before fighting Skywalker once more. He lost, and Jaina's uncle had tracked him all the way to his hideout on Tatooine and confronted him again. They'd thought him dead, when Luke had returned and told them that he had ended up in a Sarclacc.

But Brakiss had proven his resilience once more, returning yet another two years later horribly scarred to take Jaina and Zak hostage. He had held them for five months on a station almost completely saturated with anti-Jedi countermeasures and trained them in armed and unarmed combat as well as some of the darker arts of the Force.

He had not nearly been lenient with either of them, but he had targeted Jaina with all of his punishments. They hadn't known at the time that Brakiss, a newly anointed Sith Lord, had been ordered by his master, who they now knew to be Alitha, to acquire Zak and turn him to the dark side.

In that, he had been partially successful. And that was why they were now on Kamino.

Because of everything Brakiss had done to Zak to bring out his darker side, his darker instincts.

Because Zak had fallen briefly to the dark side and turned all of his new anger and hatred for Brakiss on those surrounding him; his friends, his mentors, his sister.

Because most of his memories when he had returned to normal had been blocked by his subconscious.

Because he wanted them back at any cost.

And it didn't matter that she disagreed with the methods.

* * *

The sound of the room's door hissing as it slid open jolted her senses back to full, immediate awareness. She withdrew her thoughts slowly from the corners of the planet she could not see, from the outermost edges of the thoughts of everyone in the city.

The link, she noticed when she checked it again, still felt dulled. She sighed an opened her eyes to see Zak standing in the doorway, hands clasped behind him and wearing a set of black clothes she had never seen on him before.

It suited him, eerily. The shirt was buttoned only halfway up with the collar turned down and the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. The pants were loose fitting, tied off with a drawstring in the front. He was barefoot and barehanded, and his hair was even more of a mess than it usually was.

He didn't smile.

"Good afternoon," she said with a smile as she pushed herself up from the floor and, unnecessarily, dusted off the back of her pants. "How was the treatment today?"

Zak took a step into the room and quickly looked around without moving his head an inch. "It was what it was. I did not really see anything new this time; only more of what I saw with the last treatment. I believe I am getting close to the crux of the issue that caused my mind to withdraw to protect itself from the memories it deemed most traumatic."

_Hold on …_ Jaina thought. She frowned, barely enough to be noticed. "Did you see the other visitor? When I was meditating, I felt the presence of a fourth human, and they were in the lab where you've been—"

She didn't get to finish. A dangerous look flashed through Zak's eyes in that instant, and in the next, he had whipped out his hand, fingers splayed, toward her and summoned upon the Force.

Jaina wasn't prepared for it in the half a second it took for the invisible wall to slam into her and shove her back. It threw her with such Force that she hammered into the wall above the bed, the back of her head cracking against the hard, white durasteel.

"Zak?" she gasped. The pain brought tears to the corners of her eyes. Her back hurt. Her head hurt.

The hand he had stretched toward her turned over, with the splayed fingers now slightly crooked, their tips pointed to the ceiling. An invisible hand seemed to grip her by the throat and squeeze tightly. Soon, she found she was short of air, and unable to draw more oxygen in any great amounts. She took as shallow breaths as she could, which left her breathing rapidly through the crushing, but not deathly so, grip around her throat.

"You Jedi," Zak said as he fully entered the room and let the door close shut behind him, "are so naively trusting. It will be your downfall."

He approached her with slow, purposeful steps. Jaina struggled against the hold his mind had on her. She tried to erect barriers around her person, thinking that she could just push and push until they had forced the power used against her to release her.

Her attempts failed.

The link was still dulled, sleepy.

What was going on?

"Zak?" she breathed desperately. "What are you doing? Let go of me!" She gasped another breath when the force around her throat lessened slightly.

Zak's hand had dropped to his side now, but the Force at his command did not let up. It was still there, still as strong.

She could read his intentions in his eyes. She didn't need to go into his mind to confirm what he had planned, what he was going to do to her. And with his power having caught her before she could prepare any defences, she could do nothing until he decided to release her.

_Perhaps_, she thought frantically, _distracted, he might let slip just enough for me to force my way out of his grip._

Zak chuckled as the thought ran through her mind. He was in there, reading, watching, and laughing. He knew what she was thinking, when she thought it and how she thought it. He knew what she wanted to do. He knew now that he couldn't let up for even half a second, lest she repay the favour he had bested her with in kind.

Again his hand came out, touching her below the knee and trailing slow fingertips up the inside of her left leg. All the while, his eyes never left hers, and all the while, he was smiling that same smile she had seen on him four years ago. It made her shudder.

"Anticipation is sweet," he whispered to her in that bone-chilling voice. "And I can tell you're greatly anticipating this."

She struggled again, not deigning to reply in words to what was so obviously the delusions of a madman.

What was happening?

What was Zak doing? And why like this? He knew she was his. He knew she would want no other. Why would he want it like this? What was happening to him?

Had the Sith personality reasserted itself?

Zak shook his head in response to that thought, and that's when true panic set in.

She screamed. She screamed like she had never before screamed. But it was for nothing. The force around her throat dulled the scream to a throaty gurgle of resistance. No one would hear that. She was going to die here.

"Zak!" she wailed around her attempts to scream.

Meanwhile, Zak's hand trailed higher.

It reached about her mid-thigh when she found the strength she needed. Her anger burst forth in an uncontrollable wave. Rage seeped into her thoughts. She knew she couldn't let herself give in to those emotions, but for now they had given her the strength she wanted to end this assault.

The Force burst forward with the anger. A wave of invisible energy so powerful that, even though Zak's defences had been up and strong, it rendered any defence useless slammed into him and hurled him across to the other side of the room.

His eyes were wide and his jaw hanging in shock of what she had accomplished.

She was readying a follow-through attack when he responded. He was faster than her, faster than he usually was, and that scared her. Her concentration faltered. It gave him an opening. He used it.

The invisible wall hit her again, reinforced with his own hatred and his own anger and his own pain. It pinned her to the wall above the bed by the neck, tight enough to hold but no longer to restrict breathing or screaming. It was as though he no longer cared if she screamed. A sadistic need had taken him over.

So in lieu of breaking free, which, she soon found, was futile, she screamed.

She screamed so shrilly that it hurt her own ears. She screamed so loudly that she was sure even her uncle would hear her, far away as he was.

And yet the doors to her room remained stubbornly closed; locked, even, she sensed. No one came rushing in to her defence.

She screamed again. Zak laughed, watching her with that sick look in his eyes as he came closer again.

There was a ripping sound. Her clothes fell away from her chest, exposing her. She moved to cover herself with her arms, only to have them pinned to the wall behind her. She screamed again as the cool air of the room touched her bare skin and brought gooseflesh.

"Stop this!" she snarled when he was within arm's reach. "Stop this right now, Zak, you kriffing bishwag!"

Right then, she hated him. Right then, none of her feelings for him mattered. It didn't matter that they had escaped Brakiss and death together. It didn't matter that he had come to her defence many times since then. It didn't matter that he existed at all. Right then, all she could think about was her own humiliation, and how it was Zak that was bringing it about.

She couldn't understand why. No matter how many times she tried to reason it, through the panic, there was nothing that came to mind to explain his behaviour. Even four years ago, when he had been a self-proclaimed Sith Lord, he had never attempted this. He had treated her tenderly and with kindness, or with violence. But he had never attempted to _force_ himself on her.

She screamed again when he reached out and grasped her.

And then the door exploded and everything went white.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter**

**22**

Luke sprinted as fast as he could. The Force was his guide and his aid as his legs pumped furiously. After what the Kaminoan Prime Minister had just told him, and the intense pain, horror and fear he felt coming from Jaina right then, he was in a hurry to reach her.

She was in hers and Zak's appointed room. There was someone in there with her. Someone dark. Someone very much like how Zak had been years ago.

Luke didn't let the panic touch his mind. He couldn't allow it to cloud his resolve, his thoughts. He knew what he had to do.

This time, he had to kill.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter**

**23**

The door exploded.

Jaina couldn't see past the white that filled her eyes, so she squeezed them shut to stop her retinas from being burned out.

The hairs along her arms stood on end; energy, the cause of the blinding light, crackling so close to her skin.

Screaming too, she recalled. A horrible, definitively male screaming in her ear as the energy crackled and snapped. She felt small shocks as electricity jumped from Zak to her through the hand he had on her breast, a hand that was gripping her painfully tight as the muscles spasmed under the assault.

She grunted in pain, reached up, tried to pry his hand free but to no avail.

And then the voice filled the room, a voice so dreadful and horrifying that is made her tremble, and it made her gasp.

"_GET YOUR KRIFFING HANDS OFF HER!_"

She went limp then.

The electrical energy ceased. Jaina gasped again when Zak released her. A surprised yelp, a hard, solid _wham_ against the wall across from her.

The screams were renewed almost at once. Continual screams, Zak's screams. Electrical energy danced throughout the room once more. Jaina could feel it against her skin. She could feel it in her very core.

And there was something else. She could feel …

NO!

She opened her eyes. Standing with his back to her was Zak. But … wait, what was going on. How, and why, had he changed his clothes from the black outfit from earlier into a laboratory smock?

What purpose did it serve?

She tried to push herself to her feet.

"Stay down," Zak said, sensing the movement behind him. "I don't want you to get hurt."

_What? After what you've just tried to do?_

Rage surged up inside her. She ignored him, and got to her feet unsteadily. She let the rage swell, let it fuel her connection to the Force. She knew her uncle would have words with her later about that. She knew he would sense it. Was it him lying against the wall on the other side of the room, victim of a vicious dark side assault? No. It didn't feel like Luke at all.

"I said stay down!" Zak snarled over his shoulder. And yet, despite the anger in his tone, she sensed that, for whatever reason, the anger wasn't directed at her.

Again, she ignored him. She had no reason to pay any heed to his words after what he'd just pulled. No cause to listen to a word he ever said to her again. Forgiving him for how he had acted before had been something she'd been able to do after much reflection. Forgiving him for this would be _impossible_.

She looked over at the heap on the other side of the room. Anger tried to force her into attacking. Reason told her to be sure of who she was coming to the aid of first. She listened to reason, but she didn't dispel the anger.

Her jaw dropped, and her eyes slowly went wide with disbelief.

The wall on the other side of the room had been completely decimated. The durasteel had a deep crater in it where something had slammed, forcibly, at a very high velocity. Cracks spider-webbed out from it in every direction. That the wall was still more or less intact was something of a miracle.

Slumped against the wall was another person. Since Zak was standing before her, she assumed it was the person that had intruded on his assaulting her.

But she dismissed that assumption almost at once as she watched. The body was contorting and writhing in pain, screaming his anguish for the world to hear. The voice was shrill, piercing, not quite human.

Dark hair got darker, skin got paler. A scar that had not been there before suddenly appeared across the bridge of a nose she had known well, but which became slightly crooked. Eyes looked up at her, dark eyes that grew lighter, more yellow in colour with a bloody red ring around the irises.

She chanced a look at Zak next to her. He was as she had always known him; slightly messy, dark hair and dark eyes that were now narrowed in unrestrained rage. No scars, no red in his eyes. Clad in a laboratory smock that was as white as the durasteel walls, slightly rumpled.

His left hand was stretched out in front of him, splayed fingers in the direction of the writhing, screaming mass across the room. Arcs of bright, purple-tinged electricity shot from the tips of his fingers to the other person.

Screams turned to snarls. Howls turned to guttural laughter.

Slowly, the other person got up. He was shaking with both pain and mirth. His laughter grew in pitch, the snarls interspersed between bouts of it.

"Is that all you've got, Jedi?" he said, composing himself. Flexing his arms out to the sides a little, he exerted a bubble of the Force that stretched outward until it forced the electrical arcs away from his body. They danced and flickered against the walls before Zak let up and dropped his hand.

Jaina saw that the tips of his fingers were blackened slightly, and that he was unconsciously flexing them.

She looked back and forth between the two of them. One of them, the one next to her, was Zak. He was undoubtedly, undeniably Zak Arranda. She could feel the bond. She had grown so used to it being inaccessible of late that it shamed her to admit that she hadn't sensed it coming back to her. She couldn't even tell _when_ it had come back to her.

_I woke up a few minutes ago._ It was that same familiar, comforting mind-voice she was used to and loved. The feelings that came with it were genuine: warmth, like sunshine. But it was touched by darkness as well, as he glared across the room at the other.

The other was a stranger to her, but at the same time he didn't seem so much a stranger. He had Zak's features, though rougher.

The scar across the middle of his face was thin, as though done by a knife or an animal's claw rather than a lightsaber or a stray blaster shot. The yellowed eyes with those deep, red circles, shadowed underneath by dark shadows that made him look like he hadn't slept for days. His skin was slightly paled, and a splotch of veins were standing out on his hand. His hair was darker than Zak's, and messier than her father's had ever been. It lacked the curls that Zak's did, favouring more towards sticking out at all the odd angles and then more.

It took a minute staring at him before comprehension set in and she recalled something that had been told to her two years ago.

"She said he looks like me, this other," Zak had told her then, shortly after returning from Navii Lya Prime with the information he'd found to save Allina's life.

"Oh, no!" she whispered, her hand coming up to cover her mouth.

"Oh, yes," the other said with a grin. He'd read from her mind what she had realised. "I must say; that finding that your lover boy here was almost the spitting image of me made my plans for Skywalker so irresistible.

"Everyone in the galaxy has likely heard about what happened when he turned on Yavin Four. But I had no idea what he looked like until the two of you showed up and I saw you on the security holos, entering the city behind that simpering administrative aide. And then I just couldn't resist. What better way to get close to Skywalker without his suspecting in the slightest?"

Zak's response was an enraged roar as he thrust out with both hands. The Force responded instantly to his will, but the power with which he had hoped to crush the imposter against the wall simply rolled off his shoulders with a laugh.

"HOW DARE YOU LAY EVEN A FINGER ON HER!" Zak roared with the impotence of his failed attack.

His left hand flung out again, fingers grasping. The Force swirled to his will. Jaina felt the power of it. It was thick and heavy, a looming presence gathering within the room, threatening to crush everything within its four walls.

But rather than flinging that power out at his enemy in the form of an attack, flinging out an invisible barrier to crush the imposter or shooting off crackling electricity to burn his flesh, he used it to summon, to draw towards himself.

At first, Jaina didn't quite understand what he was trying to accomplish. But then the flash of steel, the blur of something metal flying through the air from the imposter until it slapped into Zak's outstretched hand.

He spun the elongated lightsaber handle through his fingers and around behind his back as he switched on one of the weapon's deadly twin blades. The other, she suspected, was left deactivated until she was out of the danger zone.

The imposter jumped to action.

Another lightsaber slipped into his hand from inside his long, black sleeve. The handle was elaborate, flashy even. It was plated with strips of electrum and durasteel. A curving guard came out from near the mag-lock ring, with a few elaborate tendrils of solid electrum snaking around in a semi-spiral around the hilt. The pommel narrowed to a simple, sharp point that could be used for backhanded stabbing.

The imposter gripped his lightsaber tightly, holding it straight out with the tip pointed to the ground. A quick flick of his thumb and the weapon's blade sprung to life, glowing ruby against the gold of Zak's blade. The tip punctured the floor near his feet.

To Jaina, the wielding of a weapon designed so elaborately seemed awkward at best. With the spiralling electrum around the central shaft of the hilt, it looked as though it might restrict the way the wielder could twist his wrist in order to get the weapon's blade around to all the angles necessary for an effective defence.

But, she realised, it only seemed that way. For if this imposter hadn't since redesigned his weapon, he had been able to prove that it was indeed an effective weapon for him, and that the flashy design had in no way hindered how he fought.

"Show me what you have, Jedi scum."


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter**

**24**

Luke came to a screeching halt a few meters from Zak and Jaina's room, drew and activated his lightsaber at what he saw.

The doorway was destroyed; the braces around it buckled inwards, the durasteel plates bent at every angle like they had been wrenched free by hand. The door itself was gone—obliterated, by the look of the fragments that stubbornly clung to the frame.

In his mad dash to get to Jaina before something happened to her, he had missed a vital thing; he had not scanned ahead with his thoughts to ensure that she was still alive, nor who exactly was with her at the present time.

Now, he could sense three people in the room. Jaina was one of them. From her, Luke felt rage, and shame. She had been humiliated, and that humiliation had only angered her. He was wary of that anger. It was thick and dark, much as Zak's had been four years ago. If left unchecked …

But then Zak was there as well; Luke could clearly sense him standing by Jaina, his own anger eclipsing hers; his power grew and grew, almost crushing Luke beneath it as it radiated outward from the room. As it was, it almost prevented the Jedi Master from sensing the third presence in the room.

That got him moving again.

Something ploughed into him just as he reached the door, and he went spinning off to the side before crashing against the wall.

It only took him a second to shake the dizziness from his head and get back to his feet. But by then, the culprit had already dashed down the hall. Luke could only see his back; he was already at least fifty meters away.

Dark, messy hair sat atop a head that seemed to sprout from the neckline of clothes that were all black and nothing else. Thick combat boots kept his feet separated from the cold floor of the city. A tattered and singed cape flapped behind him in the sudden rush. And in his left hand was a lightsaber, the design of which Luke could not discern across the distance.

He didn't bother taking the time to dust himself off. This stranger had come from Zak and Jaina's room. He was full of hatred and malice, and presently—Luke sensed—seemed to greatly enjoy the fact that Luke could feel the impure thoughts he was having about Jaina.

The images that flashed into his mind got him moving at once, his brow creased and his mouth turned down. His arms pumped at his sides as he chased down the intruder.

Footsteps behind him, but he couldn't take the time to turn and find out who it was. Likely, it was Zak or Jaina—possibly both.

Something streaked past him. A white and brown blur that sidestepped in front of Luke and flung himself forward.

It was Zak. Using the Force, his feet propelled the rest of him into the air and down the hall like a dart. Further ahead, the stranger in black turned left around a corner and out of sight. The white-brown blur continued straight on down the hall at the wall.

"Zak! Watch out!" Jaina's voice called from behind Luke.

But Zak, it seemed, had foreseen the tactical dodge. When he reached the wall, he planted both hands flat against it. Luke felt the Force swell around the younger Jedi, slowing him and cushioning the impact with the wall. Then Zak twisted, in mid-air, swinging around to face the direction the black-clad stranger had darted. The Force flexed again, and Zak pushed off in pursuit, propelled by the Force.

Luke almost missed the entire thing; it happened in less than half a second.

He slowed when he reached the junction, bracing himself for the impact before his right side crashed into the wall. He bounced off, only mildly hurt by the collision, and rushed off after Zak.

He found himself genuinely amazed at the speed with which Zak had sped past him, and the fluid way he had altered his direction when he reached the junction. He also found himself extremely disturbed by the feral scream coming from him as he sped through the air down the corridor like he was some kind of bird.

"ZAK!" Jaina screamed behind the elder Jedi; her voice was full of anguish, panic.

Luke drew from the Force even more, requested more from that mystical power. He pumped that power down through his calves and thighs, reinforcing the muscles, making them more powerful in order to give each stride in his sprint a longer stride, a more powerful push. He siphoned it through his heart to increase blood flow, his lungs to give him better breathing capacity for the run.

He didn't gain any ground on Zak and the stranger, he was a little dismayed to note. But no longer was he losing it. The chase was on. It was even a little exhilarating.

But that aside, Luke had to keep in the forefront of his thoughts all that Koa Ne had told him only minutes ago. This imposter was dangerous; and so far he had been able to pose as Zak to fool them all.

When had the deception started?

The Prime Minister had told him that the stranger had been on Kamino since before they had first spoken via holocomm about Zak's appointment. Not only that, but the reason the Kaminoans had said nothing had had nothing to do with client privacy. This demon was no client. He had come to Kamino in anticipation of the Jedi's arrival.

But at what point had he locked Zak away and taken his place? The deception had been nearly flawless. That he had been able to pass as Zak was evidence that he had been using a technique much like Palpatine had during his days as the Old Republic's Naboo representative, and then Chancellor to hide his true appearance. And he'd had Zak's lightsaber with him at times when he'd even had one on his person. So had he snatched it from Zak directly, or pilfered it from their room within the city after locking him away?

And how had he locked Zak away? Zak was incredibly powerful, and no restraints short of Ysalamiri would have stood a spits chance on Mustafar of holding him. So what had he done?

An explosion drew his attention back to the present. He looked up from paying attention to the placement of his feet. Smoke was issuing from one of the turnoffs ahead of him. Zak had already breezed by that turn, on foot now and sprinting with his deactivated lightsaber swinging by his side, clutched tightly in his hand.

As Luke sped by the crossway himself, he chanced a look down the direction from which the smoke was issuing. A few Kaminoans were gathered together further down, chattering amongst themselves in their native tongue. Hurried as he was, the passing glance was all he had time for. Neither was he inclined to use his abilities to translate what they were saying in order to find out what had happened.

Jaina wasn't far behind him. From the sounds of it, she had gained a few steps on him, but had since matched his pace. She was distracted somewhat, and barely focussed on using the Force to manage her stamina and speed. Occasionally, as they ran, she fell behind a few paces. But then Luke felt her resolve spur her on, fuelled by the anger within her, and she would make those steps up again. A few times, she even gained a little more distance.

Another explosion from further ahead, at another intersection. As Luke shot past it, he saw a similar sight; dark smoke billowing from a room a few dozen meters down the corridor with a few Kaminoans gathered around to investigate.

The faint sound of echoed laughter—an insane cackle, really, if he had to be truthful about it—came from ahead, followed by a renewed scream of rage from Zak.

* * *

The rain was coming down heavy when Luke and Jaina sped through the ruined doors and out of the protection of the city dome. For a few seconds, it obscured the Grand Master's sight when it splattered straight into his eyes, and caused his hair to become wet and heavy, getting in the way.

Jaina cursed loudly behind him.

He spun around to take a look at her for the first time since she had last come to his room.

He gasped, understanding setting in.

Her shirt was torn badly, roughly. The tatters were no longer of any use to cover her, and simply hung from where they were tucked into her belt at her waist. A thick strip from what looked to be a bed sheet was wrapped tightly around her chest, tied off with a secure reef knot.

There was blood at the corner of her mouth, smeared as though she had tried to hastily wash it away with a hand. Her hair was a mess, and she was breathing heavily from the effort of trying to keep up with him, combined with whatever pain she was feeling from the assault on her.

But her eyes … They burned with barely restrained fury. She was keeping her hold on it only by remembering who and what she was, and what he had told her about reason.

She didn't seem to notice him straightaway. Her gaze was directed beyond him, to the sight behind him, and her lightsaber went to her belt and gripped tightly the shaft of her lightsaber. With the twitch of her thumb, she flicked the blade to life.

A feral snarl ripping up her throat, she coiled and sprung. A blurring mass of brown, white and violet sped past Luke.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter**

**25**

The heel of one of Jaina's boots brushed against Luke's cheek as she passed, but he seemed to pay it little heed. She didn't sense any pain coming from him, or indignation. She didn't bother to apologise.

Ahead of her were Zak and the imposter. Zak had both blades of his lightsaber on now and spinning as he danced back and forth around the man in black, slashing.

The other remained steadfast, only twisting and spinning to keep up with Zak's position, but not taking one step off the spot. The ruby blade of his lightsaber flashed left and right, always in Zak's way.

To her, it seemed as though this opponent, this strange imposter, was as skilled as a Jedi Master. He was calm as he faced off against Zak. In fact, he was _too _calm. He wasn't Sith. The darkness in him wasn't overwhelming him, nor was it being drawn upon. He was relying purely on his skill with the blade, using the Force only inasmuch as to keep Zak out of his mind.

How he was able to accomplish such a feat when even Luke couldn't keep him out sometimes was astounding.

Jaina soon reached the pair of them, throwing the blade of her lightsaber into the fray. She was deliberate in her timing, arriving on the imposter's left a split second after Zak passed it by to assault him from another vantage point.

Her lightsaber lashed out like a coiled viper, aiming for the imposter's leg. It seemed open. She thought she had the opening.

If she could deprive him of his leg, it would hinder his movements. Even if he used the Force to keep himself on his feet, it would be much, much harder for him to avoid the two of them. Eventually, he would catch one of their lightsabers as it passed through another limb.

Or his heart.

She made the mistake of looking up, up into the face of the imposter, which was so much like Zak's. She hesitated, and that hesitation gave him the time he needed to get his lightsaber over to hers after knocking the one of Zak's that had been threatening him skyward. His other blade, as a result, impaled the platform by his feet, slowing just enough that it threw him off, forced him to take a step back and pull his weapon free before repositioning.

The imposter's lightsaber slapped hers to the side, and she spun with the momentum of the forced swing and brought her lightsaber blurring in a wide arc. Altering the trajectory only slightly, she aimed her blade for his neck this time. If she could, she would take off his head.

The man that wasn't Zak ducked under the blade and spun, his leg catching hers and taking them out from underneath her.

She rolled backwards with the fall, switching her blade off until she was back on her feet so she wouldn't accidentally impale herself. When she was upright again, her stance regained, she flicked the blade back to life and stood, waiting for his next move.

But he just stood there, glaring from Zak to Jaina to Luke, who she now realised was standing still a few meters to her right. He twirled his lightsaber around his fingers, mocking in a way. Then he smiled.

"Is this all the Jedi have to offer me;" he asked, "an uncertain whelp, his trollop, and an old man? HA! What a kriffing laugh!"

"Who the hell are you?" Luke demanded. Jaina thought he sounded angry.

"Who am I?" The imposter laughed; a cruel sound that echoed above the rain. "You attack me, _without provocation_, and _then_ demand to know who I am? Wow, that's some pretty great manners—"

"WITHOUT PROVOCATION?" Jaina and Zak screamed at the same time.

Zak got to the imposter before she did, slashing first with one blade of his weapon, and then the other before holding it laterally and spinning on one foot to send his bare foot crashing into the imposter's gut.

He reeled, backing off a few steps. He sucked air greedily through his lips, trying to regain the breath that had been stolen from him. When he looked up again, he was glaring once more, growling angrily. He charged forward, lightsaber coming around from the left.

Jaina stepped in front of Zak, slashing down and driving the imposter's blade down through the durasteel. He wrenched it back out, grunting, and came at her again.

Jaina stepped back when she caught her uncle in the corner of her eye coming in to take her place. Green blade flashing, her uncle launched himself into a series of rapid strikes, designed to drive his opponent back. And to some extent, she saw, it was working. Luke pushed him back to the edge of the platform, right to where it scooped up into a makeshift guardrail at about thigh-height.

Then the imposter stopped, tucking his left foot back behind him to brace against the raised durasteel. He pushed off.

Luke retreated a few steps to give himself time to adapt. His opponent was coming at him with an aggressive style now; he was surprised when he realised it was Vaapad, the offensive style that Zak favoured. But it was different to how Zak utilised it. It was more feral, wilder. The one-handed strikes came at him in random flurries that took him by surprise more than once. Often, his quick Soresu defensive parries weren't quick enough to get to where he needed them, and he was forced to jump over or duck under the stranger's blade in order to avoid losing his head or his legs.

But Luke had not become the Grand Master of the Jedi Order for nothing. With Jaina and Zak allies by his side, victory was inevitable. It was only a matter of time before their opponent—this strange, dark imposter—became overwhelmed by the sheer, collective power of the three of them.

Even so, Jaina was surprised that this dark man had been able to hold his own against them so far. She was astounded that he could face Luke on seemingly even ground. For a common foe, such a thing was highly unlikely. She could only assume that this man was no common foe.

The darksider pushed him back a few more meters before Luke took advantage of an opening in his swing. Jaina watched as her uncle's blade slipped through the gap. The tip was aimed straight for the stranger's gut, where it would pierce through flesh. The wound would not be fatal, but it would be debilitating. He wouldn't be able to pull off some of the evasions and twists he had been pulling off so far against the three of them. They would be able to corner him, disarm him, interrogate him.

He was theirs.

Until he wasn't. A split second before Luke's blade made contact, Jaina saw the darksider smile at her before sidestepping to avoid it altogether. He brought his blade hammering down on Luke's, driving the plasma into the platform near his feet.

Thrown off balance, the elder Jedi stumbled past, wrenching his weapon free of the durasteel. But the darksider's lightsaber was already on a path to his neck, and the Jedi Master would not be able to get his lightsaber around in time to stop it.

Jaina rushed forward, and she saw from the corner of her eye that Zak was coming in from the other side.

Her lightsaber got to him first. She swung straight up to batter the incoming blade out of the way before she spun on the heel of her left foot and drove her right into the darksider's chest. She heard the grunt of pain as he sailed through the air away from them to crash against the signal tower near the edge of the platform.

Zak was on him in an instant.

Twin orange blades rained down on the darksider; one side and then the other swung at the strange man with little pause. All he could seem to do was bring his lightsaber up to deflect the blows. But he couldn't get an opening. He couldn't find a way through the hail of plasma coming down on him.

Jaina dashed over, slashing down at the darksider's legs when she thought him too occupied with Zak's blades to do anything about it. She was confident she had him that time.

But, once more, he surprised them. He altered the speed of his swing toward Zak's incoming blade to reach it sooner, hammering it aside. In the half-second that followed, his lightsaber spun down to deflect Jaina's. Then he ducked his head to avoid the recoil swing of Zak's second blade coming around to his neck.

He grinned at them before thrusting out at both of them with his hands.

Jaina put her efforts into erecting a wall to protect herself. It wasn't strong enough to prevent the invisible wave of Force energy that lashed out at her, sending her flying backwards from him, but it _was_ strong enough to lessen the effect. After only a couple of meters, she felt her feet touch back down on the platform and she pushed off, charging at him again.

She felt the Force swell around Zak. He was arresting his own flight, though not to the same degree of success she had had. He still went over the edge of the platform, gripping it with his free hand.

Much as she wanted to help him back up, she knew that she couldn't divert her attention thus at the moment. The darksider would take advantage of such a distraction. Even if Luke pressed him to keep him occupied, it wouldn't take him long to slip through and do something to prevent her from assisting Zak.

And, she knew, he was capable of getting back up on his own. She had long come to the realisation that she should stop underestimating his powers. He was quite strong in the Force for someone who had not trained for nearly as long as she. He could do things she couldn't even imagine. And he took risks that she never would have.

Such as what he did next.

She felt him pull himself back to somewhat adequate footing on the edge before launching himself in a high arc toward them. She, meanwhile, coordinated her strikes against the enemy with her uncle, determined not to let him out of the spot where they'd cornered him.

The Force gathered around them all, and she rolled backwards and chanced a look up to see Zak flinging his hands out toward the darksider, one at a time, as he sailed high through the air toward them.

Her uncle jumped backwards as the first of the Force blows slammed heavily into the darksider. He grunted as he was slammed against the relay tower again before shaking his head of whatever dizziness it had caused and flinging himself off to Jaina's right.

The second, third and fourth Force blows slammed into the tower, each of them damaging the durasteel more than the last, buckling the tough metal until that one spot was no thicker than a sheet of flimsiplast. The tower toppled backwards over the edge of the platform, the metal tearing with a wrench that might have been heard if not for the rain.

Jaina whirled around, swinging her lightsaber to block the blows coming from the darksider. He backpedalled on the third deflected blow and grinned at her, licking his lips as he eyed her up and down.

"Got to say …" he started, "I think I prefer you without the coverings."

A scream of rage from behind her preceded the dark blur that was Zak speeding past her as he went after the antagonist. Jaina dashed in as well, leaping over the darksider and attacking from behind as Zak went in from the front.

Lightsabers flashed as the darksider swung at them both; red against orange and violet.

A green blade of ionised plasma came slashing in from Jaina's right. She ducked, and the blade went sailing past over her head to bounce heavily off the darksider's blade. Jaina took the opportunity while she was down to sweep around with her leg. She felt contact, which surprised her mildly.

She heard him gasp as he went down; surviving by chance the dual swings of Luke and Zak that otherwise would have had him. She cursed herself silently and rolled off to the side, out of the immediate battle zone.

When she got to her feet again, he had recovered and flung himself some distance from the two men fighting with her. He looked at them all with a calm sense of self-worth, smiling at something she was obviously missing.

What was he up to? she thought to herself with eyes narrowed as she considered his next move.

"Well, my friends," he started, his tone laced with amusement, arrogance, a little frustration but not much, "you've provided me with quite the bout of entertainment for tonight. I thank you."

The hand not wrapped around his unusual lightsaber dipped into the left side pocket of his pants. Jaina's lightsaber came up, expectant of some treachery. When the hand came back into view, her eyes went wide, and she dashed forward at him without thinking.

He was holding onto a detonator. As he watched her dash between the stunned Luke and Zak, he flipped the red safety cap with his thumb and pressed down hard on the button beneath.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter**

**26**

Zak felt the explosions before he heard it. He heard it before the concussion knocked him off his feet and sent him and Jaina slamming into the cold, wet durasteel platform. Luke somehow managed to keep his footing, stumbling forward only a single step and maintaining a defensive posture in case the imposter took advantage of the distraction.

He did, but not in the way Zak expected. Instead, he turned and ran down the long stretch toward the city dome.

As Zak was getting to his feet, he watched as Luke sprinted, faster, and cut off the darksider, slashing with his blade on the way past and after he had secured his new position in order to halt the intended retreat.

The darksider responded with his own blade, trying to sidestep around the seasoned Jedi Master, and failing to gain any ground.

"Zak!" Jaina called to him. She too, he saw, was back on her feet. The rain had soaked her through, and clumps of wet hair were sticking to her face stubbornly, refusing to budge for long when she brushed them aside.

"What?"

"The dome!"

Those two words alone startled Zak into realisation. The explosions had come from somewhere. Instinct had told him to watch his prey, rather than determine what had been destroyed.

The platform they were on wasn't shifting, wasn't falling into the ocean, so at least they were safe for the meantime. Zak looked around at the domes and platforms visible from where he stood. The platforms with Luke Skywalker's X-wing and the _Silent Hunter_ were fine, he saw. So were the domes in the immediate vicinity.

Then he saw it. A thick cloud of dark smoke was billowing copiously from a dome on the eastern side of the central structure. The platform that had been attached to it was no more now than the broken remnants of the bridge leading to it, and the dome was tilting more and more each second towards the surface of the turbulent ocean.

"Go!" he heard Luke call over to them. The darksider had been pushed back to the platform proper now, fending off vicious strikes from the Jedi Master as he tried, no doubt desperately, to find a way to strike back.

"Come on!" Jaina urged on the tail of her uncle's words. Her fingers wrapped firmly around Zak's wrist and she tugged as she started on her way.

"It'll take too long to get there through the city!" Zak called over her shoulder as they ran past the duelling pair towards the dome. He chanced a look back just in time to see Luke kick the darksider in the face, sending him stumbling away in recovery. The sight brought a grin to his face, despite the rage boiling beneath the surface.

He would never forgive the imposter for what he had done, and tried to do, to Jaina. Never! And, if he was honest with himself, he wanted to kill the man. But his duty was as a Jedi first; he had to see to the safety of others.

"We're not going through the city," he heard Jaina shout back at him.

He grinned, knowing exactly what she intended seconds before he saw her leap up over the entrance to the dome. He followed suit a second later, his feet coming down to a slippery, but somewhat secure, purchase on the wet durasteel. He pushed off, sprinting over the curving metal after Jaina as she made her way straight over it in the direction of the explosions.

Zak reached out with his senses towards the dome. He had to be sure that they weren't just wasting their time. Reaching out, he felt the presence of many hundreds of minds; complex minds with complex thought patterns. The dome was full of Kaminoans, it seemed; as full as it could possibly have been without any of them being pressed against the walls. And it felt to Zak like there was an uneven mix. Most of them were of the intellectual class—at least more than half. Administrative staff made up the second highest grouping, with labourers making up the remainder.

Were there laboratories and research offices in this particular dome that had lead to so many intellectual-classed Kaminoans being imprisoned there, as he sensed they were?

"Think about it, Zak," Jaina said to him, sensing the direction of his thoughts. He noticed then that she had slowed for him to catch up.

"Huh?"

"Their society is one built on scientific accomplishment and business. If _he_ takes out this many of their research and administration staff, it'll set back whatever any of them had been working on while replacements are being brought up to speed to continue the work. Labourers are easily replaced, because it takes no special knowledge to clean, and maintenance and construction work can be learned quickly, if not directly programmed into their genetic makeup. But a lot of the researchers will have notes in their minds or on personal datapads and flimsi. Negotiators and client consultants will have built a rapport with their clients and may know preferences of frequent clients."

"I never considered that," Zak admitted as they ran. They were cresting the top of the dome now, dashing past groupings of communication towers and sensor arrays attached to the top. What looked to be a ray shield generator dome sat in the centre of the array cluster.

"I figured that." She clasped his hand again and gave it a squeeze.

"He's had this whole thing planned to the last detail," Zak said absently as they started dashing down the slope that was the other side of the dome.

"How do you mean?" Jaina asked him, sparing only a quick glance before jumping over a piece of shrapnel that had made the distance and embedded into the surface of the dome they were atop.

"He must have known we were coming. He had a good number of Kaminoans from the city locked up in that one dome, which we were then surreptitiously steered clear of—I only now realised that when Loru Fa showed me around the city, we went nowhere near that dome." He chided himself for having missed that. "A dome he apparently had rigged with explosives, either because he always intended to kill his hostages, or because he would foresee that he would need to distract whoever tried to stop him from escaping.

"He had the foresight to keep me locked away while he went about pretending to be me to get close to you and Luke. No doubt, he intended to kill you both." He didn't need to put into words what else the imposter had planned for Jaina. Just the thought brought the rage back to the surface of his thoughts.

Through the link, he felt Jaina's attempts to calm him, and he was grateful for that.

"Perhaps he's exceptionally good at improvising," Jaina offered, though it sounded like she wasn't entirely convinced of the suggestion herself.

They leapt from the dome they were on when they were halfway down the sloping side, touching down on the next dome and continuing on without even half a second delay.

"My guess is distraction," Jaina said.

"Hmm?"

"The explosions," she reminded him, bringing him back to one of his suppositions. "I would put credits down that it was intended as a distraction in case he was prevented from escaping. Since it stands to reason he'd assume only Jedi could stop him, he would know that we would abandon such an attempt in the face of saving the lives of our hosts."

Zak snorted as he sidestepped, mid-stride, around another piece of shrapnel. "Maybe it's a little more than slightly arrogant to assume only a Jedi could stop him," he said softly. Jaina heard him and nodded with a grim smile. "Nevertheless …"

Then they reached the other side of the dome they were on, they saw the destruction in its entirety. The supports holding the damaged dome to the main structure had been blown apart, as had the thick struts that had come up from the surface of the ocean to support the smaller structure from below. Those struts were now skewering the dome from below as it tilted more and more towards the ocean, its descent driving the support struts in deeper, possibly taking lives.

Zak almost turned away. He could feel some panic from the Kaminoans. Mostly, there was just a sense of determination. There seemed to be a coordinated effort within the dome to try and escape.

But escape to where? The dome was essentially cut off from the rest of the city now. It had tilted away from the main structure enough that all connecting walkways had snapped away, corridors split and disjoint.

"We're close enough," Jaina said, coming to a stop at the top of the dome they were on.

Zak stopped as well, standing beside her as they looked out at the damage. The smoke continued to pour through a large split in the supper north facing of the damaged dome, but that was all that issued from it. No one tried to climb out.

"How do you want to go about it?" he asked Jaina.

"We need to reconnect the dome to the main structure," she told him, reaching out with her right hand. Zak felt the Force swell around her, around the dome, as she used it to do as she wished. "Then we can evacuate them into the main structure. The supports aren't going to be able to hold that thing up for much longer, so it's a lost cause."

"I'll do it," he said. "Get over there when it's stable and see to the evacuation."

"Are you sure? There's quite a bit of weight behind it. It's going to tax you."

"Get!" he said with a playful slap on the arm.

He planted his feet firmly on the durasteel beneath him and reached out with both arms. He drew on the power of the Force, letting it fill him, channelling it down his arms towards his target. He felt the power encircle the structure, encasing it.

Jaina was right, it _was_ heavy. He funnelled more of his will into the task at hand, using naught but his mind to hold the structure up, to push it back into place, back to where they needed it.

It took a little time—minutes, maybe–before he had it more or less exactly where it was supposed to be. By then, he was starting to feel the effects of the task. His muscles hurt as if he were holding up the weight of the dome with his arms, rather than his mind. His whole body was tensed with the pain. His thoughts were racing, his will threatening to buckle. Sweat dotted his forehead, but went unnoticed due to the rain.

"Go!" he gasped. And Jaina took off at once.

* * *

Luke ducked under the wide swing of the imposter's ruby blade before kicking out at him. He felt his foot connect with flesh again.

No matter how many times he felt his feet or his fists connecting with his opponent, he couldn't help but be surprised by it. When the imposter had fought all three of them together, he seemed untouchable. Now that he fought Luke alone, he seemed unable to dodge a single blow.

And yet, somehow, he was able to steer clear of Luke's lightsaber. Was he toying with the Jedi Master; letting him get in those hits in order to lull him into a false sense of superiority that would ultimately doom him? Or was it that he was starting to wear down after the effort of duelling for such a length of time?

Luke doubted that it could be the latter. At most, only half an hour had passed since he, Zak and Jaina had begun trading blows with the dark imposter. He sensed that there was more in him that he was showing, that he could continue to fight against them all for much longer than he had.

And yet, Luke noticed that no matter how well he was able to fend off the three incoming blades during the encounter, the imposter had been unable to gain ground on them. The only time he had gained ground was in those minutes when he had fought the Jedi Master alone. Other than that, all he seemed capable of was tactical repositioning, deflecting, and dodging.

Whoever had trained this young man had undoubtedly been a genius.

Alitha Palpatine came unbidden to his mind. Was it possible that the young man he fought now was the newest acquisition of hers? Allina had told them all of his existence two years ago at Navii Lya. She had said that her mother had been after both this man and Zak and hoped to be able to manipulate them both into serving her and ensuring her dominance over the galaxy.

Had she succeeded in the first half of her goal already? Had she stumbled across this man, or he upon her, and a partnership of convenience been born? Or had she actually subdued him, forced her will upon him and set him loose on the task of acquiring Zak for her?

The thought was staggering. If this man was to match Zak in power, and he had so far proved that he could, and served the Empress of the Second Imperium, it would increase her power twenty fold. Together, she and this imposter could overpower even Luke Skywalker, and the rest of the High Council. Together, they could bring about the end of the Jedi Order that her father had attempted more than forty years ago.

"What's wrong, Skywalker?" the young man said with a sneer that made Luke frown. He looked so much like Darth Malonic that it disturbed Luke to look upon him. And yet, knowing that he wasn't Zak in any sense, this time, the Jedi Master was aware that he would not hold back from killing him, if his hand were forced.

"You seem quite sure of your victory, Randall," Luke said, using the name Koa Ne had provided him when he had told the Jedi about the imposter.

A flash of irritation crossed the young man's features, and his free hand lashed out, gathering the Force and flinging it toward Luke in the form of high-energy plasma.

Luke caught the electrical stream on the tip of his lightsaber, allowing the magnetic field around the plasma blade absorb and dissipate the attack while he applied slight Force pressures to direct stray streams of lightning to where he wanted it to go.

Apparently, he had touched upon a nerve.

"How is it that you com by that name?" he demanded of the Jedi Master. Then, "Ah; I see. The Prime Minister has been flapping his gums. I'm sorry, but I think I ought to silence him once I'm through with you."

"I can't allow that, Randall," Luke insisted, sidestepping to put him fully in the way of the bridge back to the city. "As I'm sure you're well aware."

Randall growled and charged forward, lightsaber flashing side-to-side. Luke easily deflected the incoming slashes as if they were no more than incessant bugs coming at him. Angered as the young man was by Luke's knowledge of his name, he wasn't thinking clearly enough to plan his attacks through as he had been previously.

Luke would use that.

He took advantage of a wide opening in the young man's attack and slashed right-to-left at chest height. The Randall backpedalled just enough to avoid the blow before resuming his attack. Luke reversed the direction of his lightsaber, bringing the pommel around and clubbing the darksider in the side of the head.

He let loose an enraged roar as he went down, spinning back to his feet.

"What has she promised you?" he asked Randall. "You should know that the word of a Sith cannot be trusted."

"What has _who_ promised me?" Randall spat as he charged forward again. Luke gave ground, battering the incoming blade back and back again before they could become a serious danger to him.

"Alitha. No doubt"—he grunted with the effort of outright blocking a particularly heavy slam from Randall's lightsaber—"she put you up to this."

"I answer to no one!" Randall roared. "And I have no idea who you're talking about!"

Luke realised his mistake an instant after Randall did. He felt the hot blade of his opponent's lightsaber brush against his leg. It wasn't deep enough to be crippling, but it _was_ painful.

He looked up at Randall, into his eyes. He saw the self-satisfied smirk. Then he was flung backwards across the platform and over the edge.


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter**

**27**

"Hurry through!" Jaina shouted over the commotion. With the building more or less stable–setting aside the occasional rock and wrench when Zak's concentration wavered—Jaina had made her way swiftly to the dome and slipped through the gap between it and the main structure's connecting corridors.

Once there, she hadn't bothered trying to slice the door electronically. Instead, she had done so literally; drawing her lightsaber from her belt once more and using the super-hot energy blade to cut effortlessly through the locked door.

Once it had been pried loose with the Force, Jaina saw behind it a large crowd of cowering Kaminoans looking back at her. Some gazed expectantly, hoping for rescue. Some looked upon her with fear, expecting that like their keeper she was there to hurt them.

It was only after she'd shouted "GET OUT OF HERE" to them that they'd understood she was there in the capacity of help. Without a word, the crowd of long limbed Kaminoans had rushed for the opened doorway. Jaina had stepped aside to let them out unhindered, and deactivated her lightsaber to save any from accidentally injuring themselves as they passed her.

She just hoped that they could all make it out before Zak lost his hold on the structure.

That being said, there weren't many left. The mid-sized city dome had been packed as tightly as humanely possible, with Kaminoans in every chamber and corridor. And yet, they had moved so much faster than she thought them capable, and the dome was almost completely emptied of life.

_Jaina!_

_Hold on, Zak. There's still a few left._

_I … can't. I can't hold it. It's slipping. Get out of there!_ Zak sounded panicked. She knew he was capable of holding the dome for a reasonable length of time. And yet, something seemed to be holding back that power. Was he consciously doing it? Or was it something else?

_Get ready to let it go,_ she thought to him across their link. She could see the last of the Kaminoans now, dashing down the corridor towards them, placid looks on their faces. They couldn't know that Zak was straining to hold the structure up for them escape, and yet they seemed so convinced of the certainty of that escape, or at least accepting the possibility of failure.

A loud grinding sound warned Jaina that Zak's hold was slipping fast. She couldn't waste any time.

She slipped her lightsaber back in its place at her belt and reached out with both hands towards the last of the hostages. Gently, she wrapped them in a cocoon of the Force, cushioning and protecting them. Then she attached a cord of the Force to that cocoon and gave it a sharp pull with her mind.

The three of them yelped with surprise when, suddenly, they were lifted off their feet and pulled through the air towards her by something they couldn't see, and possibly couldn't conceive of.

They shot past her into the hall beyond and she released them, letting them tumble unceremoniously onto the floor. Once they extricated themselves from one another, they dashed away without a backwards glance or a word to her.

_Let it go!_ She felt Zak's mind release. The Force snapped backwards towards him like a band recoiling. She sensed him collapse against the roof of the dome with the exhaustion, his eyes closed as he breathed heavily to recover. _Are you OK?_

_I'll be fine after I sleep it off. Turn the shower off, won't you?_ She laughed at his jibe, and then gasped with a sudden stab of pain lanced through her.

It wasn't her own; it was coming from her uncle.

_Did you feel that, too?_ Zak asked her.

_Yes. I think he's heading for his ship._

_I'll head him off. Get to the _Hunter_ in case I'm not fast enough._ And then Zak was gone.

She nodded, if only to herself now that Zak was on his feet again and not paying particular attention to her, and then started sprinting.

* * *

After much running, and only a couple of minutes, Jaina found herself where she had been aiming for. The _Silent Hunter_ had been too far away to realistically aim for. Instead, she'd gone to the platform that held the only other ally she had.

Artoo whistled happily at her as she ran towards her uncle's X-wing, then warbled, confused, when she popped the cockpit and leapt inside.

"Get in!" she said to the stocky little droid. In the distance, she could barely hear the sound of a ship's engines firing up over the rain pounding against the starfighter around her. Zak hadn't been fast enough, exhausted that he was. She couldn't begrudge him that. He'd done his best.

Artoo whistled again.

"Just get in," Jaina said irritably. "Comm. Luke after we take off, if you absolutely must have permission."

Likely, Artoo was jesting. It was extraordinarily rare that he flew with Jaina or her brothers. Usually, they had their uncle's permission before taking Artoo out for a spin around the Yavin system. None of them had flown with the little droid since their move to Cab'uL Tuar—for no particular reason than they just had no time for such frivolity.

She pulled the cockpit hatch down around her and secured it while she waited for the astromech to plug itself in. Once she got the confirmation that Artoo was secure and connected, she initiated the launch sequence, skimming through the pre-op as fast as she safely could.

She was only a little surprised that the imposter hadn't tried to sabotage the fighter. But then, she reasoned, Artoo would have picked up on any such sabotage and had it repaired. R2-D2 was a handy, efficient, and loyal little droid.

The droid warbled something and a translation she didn't require came up on the screen below the comm. unit. "We've got trouble. Uncle Luke was fighting against someone on another platform, but I think he might be hurt. We've got to head off the enemy before he can leave."

Artoo whistled again.

"Yeah, better get them ready. I only want to disable his ship. We'll have questions for him."

She was in the air in no time, swinging the fighter around to face the city. In the distance, she could see another ship taking off from behind one of the more distant domes on the south side of the city.

It had to be him. The imposter.

She gunned the engines and took off without warning, causing Artoo to squeal in protest when the G forces slammed him around in his socket. She muttered a quick apology and wiped her hands on her damp pant legs before gripping the flight stick once more.

Alarms blared, and Artoo screeched a warning. "I know, I know!" she shouted, yanking hard to the left and flipping over until she was looking up at the upside down city. Missiles sped by where she had been moments before, followed by a hail of blaster fire.

Jaina urged more speed out of the engines to close the distance, jinking around to avoid the hail of bolts raining down on her from the imposter's rear cannons. One shot clipped the port side shields and another alarm went off, irritating her.

When she reached blaster range, she opened up, hammering down on the trigger at the front of the flight stick and watching as red arcs of laser fire leapt out. All of her shots struck the imposter's rear shields. None of them brought the shields down.

"_Stang!_" she swore. "He's got tougher shields than I thought. "Artoo, prepare a proton torpedo."

When the confirmation came through that the torpedo was ready, Jaina opened up with more blaster fire and, in the midst of it all, launched the torpedo. Again, she watched as the blaster fire sizzled out on the shields, doing little, if any, damage to them. The torpedo missed, and she hit the auto-detonation before it could slam into anything else.

The imposter swung around, coming straight at her. She yelped, surprised, and rolled to port to avoid him as he went right by her and back towards the city.

"Bishwag!" She scowled and swung around in a tight arc to go after him.

His ship was faster than she expected too. It could easily match the _Silent Hunter_ for speed and manoeuvrability, but a starfighter could out-manoeuvre them both. However, the X-wing didn't have as much speed as the _Hunter_, and, likely, the imposter's ship—even less within atmosphere, when it was designed for space flight. But whether or not the man in the escaping ship knew that, she had yet to find out.

Thus far, he was dodging her torpedos and taking her blaster fire as though he didn't. She reasoned that anyone that would have known of their speed advantage would have just kept increasing speed until he was out of range of her weapons.

Then again, he had proven to them all over the past few days that he was adept at the art of deception, manipulation. He could be luring her into a trap.

No sooner had she thought it when his ship ducked down under one of the larger domes of the city, weaving starboard around a cluster of support struts and then turning port to go speeding out from under the eastern side of the city.

Swearing repeatedly, aloud, to herself at being taken by surprise like that, Jaina yanked hard to port to go around the support bar cluster. Another cluster loomed before her, and she decelerated hard and went starboard around it and the neighbouring cluster before shooting off to port again and out from under the city.

Rain hammered down again on the cockpit cover when she was back in the open. Blaster fire also rained down on her, hammering against the shields from above and to port.

Craning her neck around to look, she saw that the darksider had positioned his ship up and to port of where she would come out after him, ready to ambush her.

Spot failures in the shield were signalled through the alarm system. She spun the fighter over onto its side to compensate with an intact shield facing before she yanked the fighter up into a steep climb to get free of the weapons fire.

"Artoo;" she started, "lock down that stabilizer and get the port shields back up."

R2-D2 whistled confirmation that the job had been started just as Jaina wheeled around to face the imposter's ship. He had turned tail and was running again, straight towards the upper atmosphere.

She ran the numbers as she gave chase, opening up with all the torpedos and blaster fire she could get out at him. But he was increasing the gap, heading straight out into space. Even with the increased speed the starfighter would be granted in vacuum, she wouldn't catch him. He'd jump to hyperspace the instant he was beyond the planet's gravitational pull. He'd get away.

"_Stang!_" she swore loudly as she launched the last torpedo and turned back towards Tipoca City in disgust. "_Stang! Stang, stang, STANG!_"

The comm. system crackled to life.

"_Farewell, beautiful lady,_" the disturbing, almost-Zak voice came over the channel. She scowled at the receiver and hit it with her fist in anger. Laughter erupted from the grill. "_Until we meet again._"


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter**

**28**

**JEDI TEMPLE; CORUSCANT**

**TWO DAYS LATER:**

"And what of the perpetrator?" Depa Bilaba was, if possible, genuinely incensed by Luke's report to the Council. The events on Kamino had taken much out of him, and he had gone straight to Coruscant from that storm-swept world in order to pass along to his peers what he had learned there.

Luke could understand if Master Bilaba was angry at what she had learned. Luke himself had been there, and he had been close to losing control of his emotions when the Dark Jedi had assaulted his niece the way he had. Only Zak's timely arrival had prevented the assault from going much further than it did.

Jaina was by no means without a measure of power herself. Luke sensed much hidden potential within her, but, often, was at a loss when he tried to explain it. He couldn't remember entering a trance-like state when he had knighted her. He couldn't remember naming her the Sword of the Jedi. And yet he had. The Force had acted through him that day, though what it was trying to communicate was thus far lost on them all.

And yet, despite the power within her, even she had been effectively useless in defending herself against her attacker. Though she had tried, oh sorely she had tried in vain. Though Luke had not been in the room, he had been able to feel, running through the corridors to get to her when he sensed her in danger, her attempts to crush the Dark Jedi. But he seemed to shrug her off like she was nothing more than an annoying insect.

It was much different than when Jaina had fought Zak during his darker days. She had been able to affect him then. This Dark Jedi was much stronger than Zak had been in his Sith state.

The thought was slightly nauseating.

"Escaped," Luke said through gritted teeth. He took a deep breath, relaxed his shoulders, felt the tension flow from his being.

"Escaped?" The newest member of the council, a middling human woman with a touch of grey hair at her temples, sat forward in her seat, hands on her knees and her brow knitted in surprise, worry.

"How is it," Bilaba added, "that with the Grand Master, as well as two of our young with power such that they have, all on Kamino at once, that this Dark Jedi was able to elude the three of you?"

"It seems that he planned on our being there before we even knew we were going there," Luke offered, gesturing. "If I were to guess, I would say that he possesses abilities _similar_ to Zak's in foresight. Not exact, mind, or he would have foreseen Zak coming to Jaina's defence and planned for that.

"Koa Ne tells me that his visitor was there before I called to request Zak's memory retrieval procedure. Though, he was reluctant to tell me anything as to the reason for the visit. Perhaps it's just that he didn't know. I'm more of a mind that he knew, but chose not to divulge it."

"Kaminoans rarely offer information that is not requested," Master Cilghal suggested.

"I made sure to ask," Luke replied with a good-natured smile. He shifted in his seat, uncrossed and recrossed his legs. "I believe it was more in line with their policy regarding client confidentiality."

"I thought you said he murdered a number of Kaminoans?" Kyle Katarn said, a little confused.

"I did. He did," Luke said, shaking his head, "as well as holding an entire city-dome worth of Kaminoans hostage as a ploy to get away from us. He set off a number of explosives that had been planted on the support columns for the dome. If not for the combined assistance of both Zak and Jaina, that dome would have been lost to the ocean. And because they were so preoccupied, they were unable to assist me with detaining the Dark Jedi. Such was his foresight.

"But despite all of that, if he was a client of the Kaminoans, they would protect their agreement with him, no matter what."

"They confound us all," Katarn said. This time, it was he that shook his head. But then his face split in a grin. "So tell us about it; how was he?"

"I'm afraid that I must insist you wait until his combat trial to see for yourself," Luke replied mischievously.

"_Always keeping your secrets,_" said the holographic image of Mara, being transmitted from the Praxeum on Cab'uL Tuar.

"Has he begun his trial?" Luke asked her after a moment of silence.

"_He has. He's been in Scar Valley for the past two days now. Tash returned from hers yesterday. She's in good spirits._"

"As long as she knows that overconfidence is a bad thing." Mara chuckled at Luke's remark, but didn't reply. She didn't need to.

He knew that Tash would not be too confident. She had adapted well to the lifestyle of the Jedi. Though, it seemed, she followed the Old Code more closely than the new one. Aside from her friendships with others and her love for her brother, she kept a tight lid on her emotions and her interactions with others. It was as if she was using the old examples as a guide to follow to prove to Luke that she could in fact be a good Jedi.


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter**

**29**

The lightsaber came slashing around from the left side, and Zak instinctively dropped to the floor on his back to avoid being cleaved in half at the waist. The shimmering green-white blade buzzed loudly as it passed above him, close enough that the brilliance of the blade's core caused starbursts in his vision for a moment.

Shaking his head free of the distraction, Zak planted his hands on the floor, above his head, tucked in his legs with his knees pointed to the ceiling, and then shoved off with his feet. He used the Force to augment his movement, making it faster than the norm.

Before the lightsaber came around for a second attempt to slice through him, Zak had rolled backwards out of the danger zone and had his own lightsaber up and activated, ready for the follow-through.

His opponent was Luke Skywalker—the Jedi Grand Master himself. And though through recent memory retrieval was he able to recall his previous fights against the wiser Jedi, at present he felt none of the malice or intent to kill that he remembered having felt any of those times.

That was because the situation had changed. This time, Zak was not fighting his mentor for his life, or to deprive the Jedi Master of his. He was not fighting to gain power, or to terrorise others. He was not even fighting for the sake of fighting; to prove his superiority to other Jedi.

No—he was being tested.

The trials to become a Jedi Padawan had been harder than he'd expected. His self-reflection in Scar Valley on Cab'uL Tuar had been especially difficult to overcome; dealing with his own doubts of his own abilities, and his own worthiness to become a Jedi when he considered all that he had been through in recent years.

But he persevered. And he did so because of the unfaltering support of the people around him—Tash, Jaina, Jacen and Anakin, Rebekah and Matilda, Luke and Mara Skywalker, as well as the memories he had recovered of conversations with Yoda, Anakin Skywalker, and one of his own ancestors that led him to believe that there were many that knew him probably better than he knew himself.

Thus was the point of the meditation, Luke had told him prior to his leaving. And when he had returned to the Praxeum three days later, it had been with his head held high and his fingers grasping firmly the belief that he _was_ a good man, and that he _would_ be a good Jedi.

A sudden lunge from Luke surprised him. It did not keep with Ataru, the style that Zak's mentor was using. Zak had only half a second to think, reposition, counter, and then duck out of the way as Skywalker spun on his right foot and aimed a high kick at Zak's forehead.

Without saying a word of praise or criticism, the older Jedi took a long step toward Zak, then quickly shifted left. His stance changed. Zak's observational skills kicked in at once, and he recognised the new form of Shii-Cho.

Zak spun away quickly; twirling his lightsaber's long handle through his fingers, he switched to a purely defensive stance and set up his Soresu guard just in time to block the opening strikes of Luke Skywalker's opening moves.

Zak was fast, but he soon discovered that his mentor was faster. Much faster. Luke rained down a series of strikes that forced Zak to spun, jump and duck around, over and under the swipes he couldn't bring his weapon around in time to parry or block.

The increased movement speed quickly took its toll on Zak. Sweat poured down his face, and his muscles were starting to ache from the heavy strikes of Luke Skywalker's lightsaber against his own. His ankle was sore from where he had been tripped up early in the bout. He was breathing heavy, and his heart was hammering; adrenaline pumped freely through his veins.

He drew heavily on the Force to keep himself going, however, eager to prove his abilities to his mentor and to the others. It kept him breathing through the intensive movements. It kept his legs and his arms from giving out despite their protesting. It kept his vision sharp enough to avoid being seriously hurt from Luke Skywalker's more devastating attacks.

It kept him alive.

Though, deep down, he knew he had nothing to fear. He knew that he would not be killed this bout. And yet, the instinct part of him still feared every strike that came too close or every kick or punch that hit almost too hard to recover from.

Zak saw an opening on the Jedi Master's left side and darted for it, switching from Soresu to Vapaad as fluidly as a drop of water over a smooth surface. He lunged out with a series of strikes that pushed the older Jedi back, and then pressed him, hammering down on that opening where the Jedi Master's defences were seemingly weaker.

It was a trap.

In a bright blur of green-white light, Luke Skywalker unleashed the true extent of his speed. His lightsaber swatted Zak's away from the opening and then, in a reversal that was dizzying, snapped back around and rebounded off Zak's ribs on the right side.

Though the blade was low enough level not to cut through flesh, it still burnt its way through his favourite maroon top.

The smell of burnt fabric and flesh reached Zak's nose as he gasped at the suddenness of the pain. He switched off his lightsaber and dropped to his knees, finally grateful for the reprieve. His mentor's lightsaber hummed as it spun through the air again and came down to stop only centimetres above his right shoulder.

"Zak Arranda …" someone said from the darkness around the edges of the chamber. Footsteps heralded the approach of a handful of other people, people Zak had known all along had been standing on the edges of the room, watching with interest as mentor and student battled, as the mentor tested the capabilities of the student.

Zak knew that he hadn't failed. He knew that the point of the test was not to prove that he could beat a Jedi Master. He knew full well, and there was no point in trying to delude himself otherwise, that a Jedi of Luke Skywalker's skill was not going to be felled by a Jedi student of Zak's level.

He was not the Sith that had fought Luke. And, thinking on it, after the duel he had just had with his mentor, it was more than likely that Skywalker had been holding back his full capabilities at that time, unwilling to be the cause of the death of one of his pupils.

Zak remained where he was, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the closest of the approaching masters.

Jedi Master Kyle Katarn was perhaps one of the more carefree of the Jedi High Council. He had once been a trooper of the Empire at one point, but that was not something Zak could hold against him, lest he be forced to hold it against his friend, Han Solo, as well. Both of them had started out in the Empire before finding their own ways to the Rebellion.

Kyle Katarn had learned much of the Force on his own before discovering Luke Skywalker. From what he had heard, Katarn's path had not been the easiest. The dark side had been stalking him for years, at alternating times challenging and tempting him.

Looking at him now, though, Zak would never have guessed any of that if he had not been told any of it previously. His person seemed to ooze nothing but well intentions, and his aura seemed only to glow with the light side of the Force.

Zak waited without a word. He knew that the Jedi Master—one of the many in the chamber with him—would say something sooner or later. And patience was a virtue, and a key trait of the Jedi.

Another Master approached from Zak's right. Webbed, sandalled feet made the barest of sounds in comparison to the whisper of the robe's hem against the stone floor.

"You have done well, young Jedi," Jedi Master Cilghal said. Her webbed fingers were laced in front of her as she considered him, kneeling as he was with Luke Skywalker's lightsaber only centimetres from his face.

"We are most impressed," Katarn offered after that.

"Despite your disadvantages," started another from somewhere behind him—a voice Zak did not recognise, "you have proved to us today that you possess a level of skill uncommon to someone of your years.

"Starting much later than many of your peers, you managed to catch and then surpass a great many of them."

"Though you may have suffered from perhaps the greatest setback a young Jedi could perhaps ever encounter throughout their training," Katarn started, "you have overcome your darker side, your darker impulses, and proved that dominance of your mind is firmly within your grasp."

"Emotion is ruled by reason, and of this you have shown."

"Wisdom is strengthened by logic, and of this you have shown."

"Jedi are the guardians of peace in the galaxy. Jedi use their powers to defend and to protect. Jedi respect all life in any form. Jedi serve others rather than ruling over them, for the good of the galaxy. Jedi seek to improve themselves through knowledge and training."

All of them spoke as one, a cacophony of different voices, and all spoken in the native tongues of the Masters standing around him. It was slightly disorienting, but Zak persevered.

The lightsaber arced over his head to stop above his other shoulder before the blade was switched off altogether and the chamber thrown into darkness.

"Zak Arranda," Luke Skywalker started from above him. "Rise, a Knight of the Jedi Order."

Zak froze for but an instant.

A Knight? He had thought that his trials were to progress him to becoming the apprentice of an experienced Jedi Knight or Master. To skip the Padawan stage altogether was, as far as he knew, unheard of. Even the most powerful of Jedi in recorded history had never made such a leap.

Why now? Why him?

"Understand," Luke continued, "that this decision was not made lightly, and not unconditionally. It was only after many days of discussion with my colleagues that we agreed to bestow this title upon you _provisionally_, that you may prove your worth of it.

"Do not," he continued, a little more sternly, "let this go to your head. I know that you can sometimes fall prey to that one weakness of humans. You have proved your skill to be on par with that of some Masters, thus the decision to grant you this conditional ranking.

"But let our duel here and now be a reminder to you that even a powerful Jedi still has much to learn of the Force. Even one such as I will never stop being a student. Thus is the meaning of the final verse of the creed of the Jedi."

Zak rose, forcing himself to meet the eyes of his mentor. And before he could stop to think of where the words came from, he uttered, "Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet the Force."


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter**

**30**

The chamber was a grand affair, if dark. In fact, there was so little lighting that he had to twist the power of the Force into granting him the ability to see anything. It helped him avoid a few would-be embarrassments that would have resulted from him tripping over the loose cabling by the door, or stubbing his toe on the myriad of deactivated, and long-disused consoles that dotted the chamber.

It wasn't so dark, however, that he was unable to make out the silhouette of the woman across from him. She was lounged quite casually in an ornate throne of black marble, padded to her own comfort with the Second Imperium's standard emblazoned in silver on dark drapes behind and to either side of it.

So identical, it was, to those used by the Empire and the Remnant.

He was definitely in awe of this woman. He could sense the power she commanded through the Force; power the likes he could scarcely dream. One day, power such as that would be his to wield. But for that day to come, he knew he would have to make certain concessions.

The pledge he'd made to his former master never to allow others to rule his path for him would have to be broken.

But then, his former master was long dead. What would he care of promises made when he'd been alive?

"Approach, you delicious morsel," the woman said, her seductive voice cutting through the darkness as if it was something tangible, and her words had been a lightsaber. "Let me get a good look at you."

He gathered his wits and did as she bade him. The darkness seemed to swirl around him with each step he took. He could swear he heard whispers coming from the walls to either side, whispers about him. He restrained the urge to reach out and discover who lay there, hidden from his sight.

"Oh my," the woman's voice said again.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs that lead up to the woman's throne. To begin climbing those stairs would be to challenge her, he knew. And though he sorely wanted to do that so as to prove his worth to this woman, at this point he reasoned it would be smarter to hold himself back. He had plans that needed to be set in motion.

And for those plans to be set into motion, he had to do the unthinkable.

"I come seeking the woman known as Alitha Palpatine—self-styled ruler of the Empire-in-Waiting," he announced loudly and for all in the chamber to hear. If there were others in the room as well, where he couldn't see them, he wanted to give them the impression that he was planning on challenging the woman he looked up at, even though he had firm control over that urge.

"And what interest, might I ask, would this Alitha woman have in you?" she responded. Was she being coy? Was she testing him?

He was pretty sure it was a test. After all, he had learned from the _other_'s mind that they had fought before, and that she had been deceived by him. Perhaps she was being cautious, wary of another deceit. That she was displaying her lightsaber on the arm of her throne, but not in her hand, was enough of a threat to dissuade any notion that that was not it.

"I have heard she seeks the one called Zak Arranda," he called up the stairs to her. He knew she was Alitha. She could play coy all she wanted. It would not deny what he knew. "My name is Randall Equidar, and I recently fought him on Kamino."

"Yes …" The word was low, and drawn out. It was as if the knowledge of what he had stated pleased her in some way. Maybe it had. She seemed to be the type. "I've read the reports: Kaminoan hostages, an attempt on Jaina Solo's life, trapping Zak Arranda's mind within the workings of the memory device in order to incapacitate him. And all the while, pretending to _be_ Zak Arranda to fool that unbearably arrogant Skywalker. I must say, I was quite impressed when I heard all of that.

"But, again, I must ask what of you would interest me?"

"I have heard things," Randall said, suddenly uncertain. "I have heard that you're a Sith Lord." The woman nodded, which made him smile but for an instant.

"What else have you heard?" she asked him.

"That you command great powers," he responded, starting in on the mental checklist. "You're more powerful than your father—more powerful than the ancient Sith'ari. A great many of the Remnant defected to you when the Bastion Accords was signed. You personally led the assault of the Yavin System three years ago that forced Skywalker and his ilk out." He paused. Those were the more important things on the list. He need not flatter her, lest she decide that such flattery rendered him useless to her. "Imperium movements since then have been more or less quiet. My only guess is that you're preparing for war."

"Quite."

That wasn't quite a confirmation that what he had said was true. But it bordered on one, more than it resembled any denial of such an accusation. The slight smile that played her lips gave some indication to her thoughts, and Randall found himself quite intrigued.

"I do like the way you think," he admitted freely. This early into the partnership he knew was inevitable, he felt no qualms about admitting certain admirations. If he was to be useful to her as a partner, he would need to show her that she could rely on him, if not entirely trust him.

"Flattery will get you nowhere," she said, smirking down at him. He frowned. "Although, it is appreciated. Feel free to continue."

Randall frowned. "Much as I'd like to, if it's not going to help my case then I'd rather not."

The woman laughed from her throne. She laughed for several long moments before settling. Leaning forward, her hands hanging over the ends of the arms of her throne, she gazed down intently at Randall with something akin to a hungry look in her dark eyes. It was the kind of hunger that he could sympathise with. He hungered for what he could learn from her, what knowledge he could take from her. And she likely hungered for what she could take from him in return, and what she could use him for.

But that wouldn't necessarily make them equal partners in any venture. Likely, he would have to subdue her at some point, to make her realise his superiority.

At that very thought, however, he felt her mood change. Her hungry eyes narrowed into the darkest glare he had ever fallen victim of. Her lips curled into a snarl of rage, her eyes seemed to glow, and she gripped the arms of her chair tightly.

The Force swirled around her, causing strands of her dark hair to flick about in a breeze that was not present. And then it came crashing into him, slamming into his gut like a durasteel fist. The wind driven from him, he collapsed to his knees and pressed his forehead into the cold durasteel deck. With every chance, he drew a deep, gasping breath. But even those came rarely, and he found himself on the verge of suffocation before the next breath came.

The invisible weight pressed down against his arched back, almost crushing him, almost breaking bone and bursting his internal organs.

He had to resist. He had to show her that he was better than she was making him look. She would _not_ dominate him like this.

The anger surged through every fibre of him, fuelling his command of the Force. He took another deep breath and looked up at the woman. And then he let loose his power. He cut his control and let it surge forward.

The weight lessened from him, and he forced himself back to his feet, still glaring up at the woman. When the shock from the impact to his stomach finally faded, he took deep, rapid breaths on instinct.

Though standing again, with the weight mostly lifted from him and his breath back, he could not turn that power back on the woman. He tried, but a sort of fog had crept into his mind. He knew it had to do with the temporary lack of air.

"Impressive," the woman said, once more wistful, hungry. "Very impressive. Welcome to the Second Imperium … my apprentice."


End file.
